2024 Contest Now Accepting Entries!

Submit your best new product ideas for a chance at $25,000, other great prizes, and global recognition. If you already are registered, log in to access the entry form. Otherwise, click here to get started.

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 15,000 design ideas have been submitted by engineers, students, and entrepreneurs across six continents. You can also join the innovators who dared to dream big and build a better tomorrow by entering this year’s contest.

Read About Past Winners’ Success Stories

Over the past 20 years, many innovators have used the recognition afforded by the contest to advance the development and marketing of their technologies. We highlight some success stories of past winners who have brought their inventions to the marketplace.

Click here to read more

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.

Listen now

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.

“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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Self-Sizing Internal Combustion Engine

Votes: 0
Views: 5744
Transportation

Imagine for a moment, a reasonably priced automobile with 5 or even 11 different sized engines in it, one for every driving situation from creeping along in traffic to safely towing a large boat or travel trailer up a mountain.

A powerful computer system controls which engine to use in every situation and thus gives the best possible fuel economy and concomitant lower emissions no matter what the driving conditions are at the moment. You have a durable green economy car and a muscle car in the same vehicle without the need to give up comfort, space and safety. This is an unprecedented capability not currently available anywhere in the world marketplaces at any price.

US Patent #7,779,627 is for an amazingly simple yet highly innovative computer controlled internal combustion engine that accomplishes this dream. It literally smoothly changes its size dynamically in response to real driving needs. The engine meets and exceeds global fuel consumption and emission standards for its entire range of operation without the need for expensive and heavy battery packs or charging stations. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ycxA3oF_2Ws is an animation of a sample engine configuration in operation.

This is accomplished automatically in a cost effective manner with an amazingly simple mechanism that can be manufactured in existing facilities without a huge investment in infrastructure or new technological breakthroughs. It can be brought to market in a relatively short time.

The marketplace for such innovation encompasses all uses of internal combustion engines from fractional horsepower engines to container ship engines of over 100,000 horsepower and everything in between. It is global and arguably the largest industrial complex in the world.

The invention does not require any new gears, linkages, levers, bearings, seals or other mechanical components and can utilize over 120 years of improvements already in place. It is multi-fuel.

The invention works by dividing the conventional piston/cylinder configuration of an internal combustion engine into independently controlled parts such that it is possible to disable all or part of a combustion chamber when less than full power is needed or desirable. It does this without changing the center of gravity of the rotating mass of the engine so vibrations are kept to a minimum. Any cylinder portion not in use is not using any fuel or creating any unfavorable emissions. The computer always delivers the minimum amount of power needed to meet current needs and no more.

The business plan calls for the licensing of the technology to existing engine manufacturers that are already established in global markets rather than attempting to manufacture engines ourselves.

A recent National Science Foundation review of the invention made the following statements:

“This is essentially unique” and “This could be a game changer in one of the largest segments of the global economy.”

“Exceedingly high intellectual merit.” “Worthy of being funded for its potential game-changing impact in a huge part of the economy.”

“The outcome (of development) could affect the transportation industry in positive ways, with corresponding reduction of emissions with its concomitant benefits.”

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  • ABOUT THE ENTRANT

  • Name:
    James Ries
  • Type of entry:
    individual
  • Software used for this entry:
    Sketchup for 3D Drawings
  • Patent status:
    patented