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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.
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“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/2011
2011
Develop half-size printers for printing documents that do not require standard 8.5x11-inch paper, such as sparsely worded fliers and reduced-size manuscripts. This would not only save paper and toner, but weight in shipping products and documents that currently use standard-size paper. Printers themselves would take up less space in offices,
Wireless power systems, such as inductive power transfer (IPT), can be installed at airports to power aircraft while idling at gates and on taxiways. This would eliminate the need to run jet engines to power stationary aircraft, annually saving approximately 750 Mgallons of fuel and eliminating over 7 million mtons of carbon dioxide.
The problem that exists today that prompted the idea for this device is that there is a declining availability of fossil fuels and other “non-clean” energy sources. Scientists and engineers around the world have developed means of harvesting “clean energy.
Saves valuable wall space by allowing user to hang flat screen televisions and pc monitors in the corner of any room. The bracket remains completely hidden behind the tv screen/ monitor. U.S. Patent #7,883,066. This system has only 3 parts, and is much easrier and less time consuming to asemble than any other bracket on the market today.
DAMPS MKIV Smart Boots utilizes the most advanced shock mitigation suspension/propulsion technology in the world.
DAMPS Technology MKIV Smart Boots utilizes opposing super magnets in the heel of footwear for advanced suspenstion/propulsion shock mitigation.
In testing with Special Operations Forces (SOF), DAMPS recorded over a 68% increase in heel strike shock mitigation, when compared to conventional footwear.
Hurricanes are tropical storms of high speed. They originate in the equatorial regions of the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans. They involve heavy rains and powerful winds. They cause floods, loss of human lives, livestock and destroy buildings. They snap and uproot trees and down power poles. They make the hit area uninhabitable for weeks or months.
My third idea from Salamander Research And Development is for a novel log-splitting wedge. Most log-splitting devices/machines have a single wedge, while some do have another wedge mounted at 90 degrees from the other wedge. My novel design would be capable of splitting a log into six equal pieces with one pass which saves time and fuel.
Automating power transmission, basing on the USB theory and the desk phone headset theory. This whole setup looks at improving power transmission with easy to manage power usage by clients. Clients' meters are going to be managed by a centralized software systems at substations,
This new aircraft design will deploy state-of-the-art technology present in the latest subsonic passenger aircraft today.
In times of natural disaster potable water and electrical power are scarce. Water is both heavy and heavily used, therefore it is most economical to transport fuel as a source of power and make the water locally from the moisture in the air. The mechanism proposed will provide both emergency power and water.
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