Vote for Your Favorite Entries
The 2026 contest is now closed for submissions, but you can still vote for your favorites. Voting is open through September 7. Here’s how.
Help build a better tomorrow
Since Tech Briefs magazine launched the Create the Future Design contest in 2002 to recognize and reward engineering innovation, over 16,000 design ideas have been submitted by engineers, students, and entrepreneurs in more than 100 countries. Join the innovators who dared to dream big by entering your ideas in our 2026 contest.
Read About All the 2025 Winning Inventions
Special Report spotlights the eight amazing winners in 2025 as well as honorable mentions in each category, plus the top ten most popular entries as voted by our community.
Click here to read moreThank you from our Sponsors
“At COMSOL, we are very excited to recognize innovators and their important work this year. We are grateful for the opportunity to support the Create the Future Design Contest, which is an excellent platform for designers to showcase their ideas and products in front of a worldwide audience. Best of luck to all participants!”
— Bernt Nilsson, Senior Vice President of Marketing, COMSOL, Inc.
“From our beginnings, Mouser has supported engineers, innovators and students. We are proud of our longstanding support for the Create the Future Design Contest and the many innovations it has inspired.”
— Kevin Hess, Senior Vice President of Marketing, Mouser Electronics
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Contest
The Problem
Friction is the world's single biggest waste of energy. New polymeric and nano-composite bearing material “recipes” promise substantial friction reducing solutions. However, their development and application are often hindered by current tribological (the study of lubrication, friction and wear) test systems, driven by three recognized issues:
• Long test time: Due to measurement limitations,
The Mini Infuser™ is a miniature, disposable, programmable drug delivery device designed to significantly lower the cost of patient care while improving a patients lifestyle with increased pharmacological safety, patient mobility and fewer needle sticks.
WHAT PROBLEMS DOES YOUR DESIGN IDEA SOLVE
The prototype should act as a vest personal lifeboat JCB in all kinds of shipwrecks. It consists of several protective layers of plastic or extremely strong polymers, the penultimate formed by a medieval mesh, to protect against shark attacks in particular.
A whole new generation of purely electric vehicles and "Plug-in" hybrids will soon be commercially available and attention has to be given to creating the infrastructure required to keep the batteries of these vehicles fully charged during their urban commutes.
Thin client built into the keyboard
Even thin clients for network use, instead of thick client alias stationary computers, are not as small as could be.
As you anyway have to use a keyboard, you could as well build the electronics into the keyboard as one unit. Perhaps you also could add an optical drive,
48% of US consumers are unhappy with store bought tomatoes. In 2009, 43 million households grew vegetables; 9 million were new to gardening. Tomatoes are one of the most challenging vegetables to grow. Lack of space, expertise, time, sunlight, or unpredictable outdoor conditions prevent home gardeners from successfully growing tomatoes.
LANDIT SYSTEMS INC. U.S. PATENT US 7,414,527 B2
Security/identification system for the transportation industry. Applicable at warehouses, military installations, ports of entry and any place requiring high level of security. Here's how it works:
A. LANDIT LINE - Partially ground-imbedded structure resembling parking area painted guidance line, at parking area deploying Line R/D.
The traffic situation is bad and getting worse. Congestion delays the average American driver hundreds of hours per year. Such a situation robs productivity, increases air pollution, and wastes petroleum. The need to alleviate the congestion leads to the building of new roads and bridges that do little to help.
One constraint causes much of the congestion.
The Quantitative Measuring Dispenser provides an easy way for dispensing medicaments and other materials directly from the original container. The device meters the dose exactly with minimal tolerances and with no chance for a partial dose or dose larger than required. The device is easy to affix to the container and easy to use,
Electrical and Thermal Characteristic of Biological Tissue Modeling (ETCBM™)
Abstract:
Radiofrequency ablation (RFA) is a nonsurgical medical procedure used for treatment of cardiac disorders such as arrhythmia or destruction of cancerous tumors in lung, kidney, breast, liver or any other dysfunctional tissue diseases. RFA is also used for treatment of varicose veins,
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