The 2025 Contest is Now Open for Entries!

Submit your best new product ideas in any of seven categories for a chance at $25,000 USD and other great prizes. Here’s how to get started.

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Since Tech Briefs magazine launched the Create the Future Design contest in 2002 to recognize and reward engineering innovation, over 15,000 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 today.

Read About All the 2024 Winning Inventions

Special Report spotlights the eight amazing winners in 2024 as well as honorable mentions in each category, plus the top ten most popular entries as voted by our community.

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A ‘Create the Future’ Winner Featured on ‘Here’s an Idea’

Spinal cord injury affects 17,000 Americans and 700,000 people worldwide each year. A research team at NeuroPair, Inc. won the Grand Prize in the 2023 Create the Future Design Contest for a revolutionary approach to spinal cord repair. In this Here’s an Idea podcast episode, Dr. Johannes Dapprich, NeuroPair’s CEO and founder, discusses their groundbreaking approach that addresses a critical need in the medical field, offering a fast and minimally invasive solution to a long-standing problem.

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Thank 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.

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— Kevin Hess, Senior Vice President of Marketing, Mouser Electronics

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Innovative Transit and Alternative Energy System

Votes: 17
Views: 8658
Transportation

Sky Train Corporation created an Innovative Transit and Alternative Energy System that conserves natural resources and improves quality of life. The Sustainable SOAR300 is technologically advanced electric transportation for moving people and freight, originally funded by The Technological Research and Development Authority. It’s powered by wind, solar, fuel cell or grid energy stored in our patent-pending Energy Storage and Transfer system (ET).

Our design idea solves the problems of traffic congestion, emissions and lack of convenient, fast and affordable public transportation. It eliminates dangerous and expensive road crossings, commuter delays, and costly construction. SOAR300 only requires small support pads on ground level so uses 4% of the space of most systems, preserving land.

The potential benefits include minimal interference to traffic and businesses during construction and operation and faster straight-a-way (100mph) and curving speeds (3 times trains), reducing fleet size and passenger travel times. Automation saves 40% of operating costs and guarantees on-time scheduling and longer service hours.

The novel ideas to elevate and suspend are major improvements over ground transit. SOAR has 63 patented claims and sources renewables, unlike competing systems. It uses mostly standard automotive and re-arranged rail parts, with unique electronic configurations.

SOAR services Livable Communities, municipalities, campuses and air/seaports increasing accessibility. ET’s applications are recharging EVs and powering areas off the grid.

The transportation market is $50 billion per year. The monorail market is $2 billion and light rail $10 billion. Swift assembly and construction make implementing SOAR quicker and less costly than competitors’, improving marketability.

The SOAR design works as a monorail suspended from a track in a triangular truss structure. Our patented swing-out feature controls centrifugal force on curves for passenger comfort eliminating costly tilt mechanisms. SOAR conserves and reuses energy captured when slowing down, and with the ET, saves 40% over non-regenerative EVs.

Structures will be welded from extruded recycled aluminium; reducing time and weight. Local manufacturers will produce SOAR using ready-made parts pre-assembled into our proprietary designs. This saves time and money for engineering, tooling, and production enabling quick erection on-site.

Production costs compared to other systems are much less since we keep low inventory, use partners’ facilities and require less material content. Our systems are cost effective, estimated at $35 million per mile with our competitors averaging $97.

SOAR prevents injuries because it’s elevated, rides on dedicated corridors, and sensors notify of stopped trains ahead eliminating accidents.

The system improves public safety and security by having the track, signaling, camera surveillance, lighting and power supply installed safely overhead, protected from weather events, debris or vandalism. Its vehicles are locked in, so it cannot derail. The ET and elevation allow uninterrupted service after severe weather events.

The first system will be built as a transportation and energy exhibit at a museum in Tampa with universities providing advanced technologies and evaluation of systems’ operations to lead to other product improvements.

We provide solutions to energy and transportation challenges offering the most efficient public transit available, the SOAR/ET system.

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  • About the Entrant

  • Name:
    Karl Guenther
  • Type of entry:
    team
    Team members:
    Sky Train Corporation
    Karl Guenther
    Dan Simpson
    Doug Tobin
    Kim Wood
    Francis Knize
    George Taylor
  • Software used for this entry:
    AutoCAD
  • Patent status:
    patented