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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Many engineers and designers have developed different kinds of devices to help visually impaired individuals. However they all hadn't had success in a single yet essential point.
In order to make blind people understand all information around them, first you need to find a way to fast communicate with them. All kinds of solutions have been proposed: sound warning,
It’s a staggering fact that there are nearly 37 million visually impaired (blind) people across the world. India ranks first in the blind population with more than 15 million people in the country alone.
Currently most blind people rely on other individuals, dogs, and their canes to find their way in buildings.
Our micro robot – patent approved - is 5 x 5 mm small and holds a diamond. It moves with sub-micrometer precision in 3D space. The diamond drills holes, polishes mirrors, grinds lenses, cuts channels and mills 3-D parts of any shape. This creates solid parts with a precision of +/- 100 nano meter.
TourEngine™ is a patented split-cycle combustion engine with substantial efficiency gain and reduction in noxious emissions over common engines. Measurements from a running gasoline-based prototype, developed by Tour Engine Inc. (www.tourengine.com), and simulations done by independent consultants predict the performance leap.
With your help, Massive Nibble© can win the money we need to build a solar-powered, water-cooled Zero Pollution Engine™ (ZPE©) for use in watercraft. Together, we can enhance the safety and security of American waters by enabling the Coast Guard to patrol on sunny days, without fuel expense and without creating any air, water or noise pollution.
Massive Nibble© needs your vote so we can help feed the world by using our solar-powered Zero Pollution Engine™ in farm tractors and other machinery. Together, we can help feed the world with farm equipment that doesn't pollute and costs almost nothing to operate. Solar-powered equipment will allow crops to be planted, irrigated and harvested at minimal cost,
The idea behind Flexible Gear design is to be able to engage and disengage (without grinding gears or destroying equipment) two gears using only Flexible Gears. Even though these gears would be used for light or medium duty operations, the benefits are not only saving money and time but also the noise will be reduced,
This invention is in principal a new method of saving electrical energy. The usage of this invention will allow reduction of electrical losses which occur in the electrical transmission networks. The application of this invention would result in cutting energy losses in the electrical energy networks by half and therefore increasing the network efficiency.
A billion people worldwide have access to neither clean water, electric power, consistent solar energy or readily available replacement batteries. Urban dwellers fear terrorist and natural disaster induced compromised electric and water delivery. Campers and the military need to convert questionable to safe water from streams and ponds. WaterSAFE answers these needs.
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