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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
Speechless are using sign language to communicate with other people. The problem is that most people do not know sign language. I propose to build a device able to recognize symbols of sign language and convert them to speech.
My idea is to have an alarm clock with a voice recording (dictaphone) feature. Recorded mesages would be all or part of the alarm sound which goes off to wake the user up. The message the user records before turning in would be reminders of what needs to be done upon waking up.
The system use the refrigeration cycle principle working in reverse by the refrigerant absolving heat from sun panels and the refrigerant cooling from earth buried heat exchanger (liquidification). Under the refrigeration cycle principals the temperature difference is converted in pressure difference,
This self contained highway lighting apparatus consists of a base made in the same cross sectional dimensions of existing "K" rails that divided the Highways. This base will have a hole that accepts the drop in style of this lighting unit.
The U.S. is the largest user of energy and also has vast deposits of coal. Existing methods of producing electricity from coal has the problem of releasing large amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, which increases global warming.
A more efficient method would be to fuel pulse combustion devices with coal gas. A pulse combustion boiler (see expired U.S.
There are three principal methods of heat loss through a window. These are radiation, conduction and convection. Radiation losses may be greatly reduced by means of and IR blocking (low E) coating applied to the warmer side of the window.
This is an adaptation of an ancient system used in the Peruvian Andes to filter solids and transport water since 5,000 years ago. It makes use of two free forces of nature, adhesion and gravity via the well known capillarity and siphon effects using fiber filled conduits.
I have designed low cost mechanisms that when incorporated into computer or traditional desks/workstations, will significantly improve the ergonomic profile of the desk.
This improved, individually customizable, ergonomic adjustability will not only allow a user to experience higher levels of productivity & accuracy, but will also increase his/her overall comfort level. Additionally, it can also help reduce neck, back,
Soft sprays, massaging jets, and multiple showerheads can be combined with mood music and lighting to create a sensual shower experience like no other. Simple cold showers invigorate while hot showers relax. What more could possibly be done with shower designs?
Imagine taking both hot and cold showers at the same time; cold droplets hitting adjacent to hot,
Seventy-six percent of the US population wears some sort of visual aid device. Focusing long-term on a close-range object (such as a book or computer monitor) often leads to eye muscle atrophy. This problem affects a rapidly-increasing number of people, due to an increase in computer use. While some vision-impairing conditions (eg.
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