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
contest
Contest
Tidewater Blue is a sending unit for marine fuel tanks that gives accurate fuel level readings under any water/weather condition and will tell the operator if water is in the tank before the engine is started. With the introduction of ethanol fuels a few years ago, water has become a major problem in the marine industry.
This project is a revolutionary non-polluting environmental process, using proprietary technology, chemicals and mechanical devices, which efficiently separates and transforms used nylon carpeting into its original individual components for reuse, namely; nylon, polypropylene, and rubber adhesive. In the United States alone, over five billion pounds of new nylon carpeting is produced annually to replace old nylon carpeting.
Recoil saw
Using a hand saw requires repeated push and pull strokes. Normally this involves either: limiting the force of each stroke, or making a separate effort to stop each stroke.
The recoil devices are simply an impact bar, attached to 1 or more springs, attached to the hand saw.
When using the recoil saw,
This idea will eliminate millions of power cords, product cases, remotes, duplicated circuits and save much energy. It will save consumers and manufactures much money. It is a win win situation and can be made in America. It will work in all countries.
Following is a physical description of the Green Smart Entertainment System,
This entry seeks to find a way to broaden our consciousness of our electrical consumption through visual cues and information modeling. The primary issue we would like to “illuminate” is Phantom Power Loads from electronic devices and appliances. Most electronic devices continue to draw a small amount of power when they are switched off.
The Zero Pollution Aircraft Engine© (ZPAE©) from Massive Nibble© will be the world’s first solar-powered engine targeting both the private and commercial aircraft markets. The ZPAE© is a new, much more efficient Stirling heat engine configuration that can be rapidly and precisely throttled. It can make power with any heat. Solar, renewable fuels, bio-diesel, etc.
The Massive Nibble© Zero Pollution Engine™ (ZPE©) will take solar power to a whole new level. It’s a new, very simple, much more efficient Stirling heat engine design, that can be made with a power density exceeding that of internal combustion engines and can be rebuilt indefinitely.
Chameleons would look like ordinary white shoes. They would come in different styles, from Air Force 1-like shoes to high-top skater-like shoes, and even women friendly fashions. What separated them from other shoes it that under a thin layer of transparent plastic are the ends of thousands of fibers.
Ships have propellers which are designed to fling water relatively rearwards in an efficient manner. Tidal power is one area of ‘alternative energy’ which seems as if it has some chance for being cost effective.
My invention is therefore to combine this information and create a simple source of renewable energy.
Take ships which, due to economic conditions,
This invention is a new form of tyre which can be changed without removing any wheels and jacking up several tonnes of steel.
It is in the form of a number of separate rubber compartments, each with a metal foot bonded on. These feet are slotted axially into a hub, as show,
Page 1066 of 1074
