Welcome to the tenth annual Invention Awards! In the May 2016 issue, Popular Science will celebrate garage tinkerers and backyard builders, the makers and DIY enthusiasts who are turning their ideas into reality. To find the best independent inventions of the year, we need you to submit your home-grown creations.
We want to know about world-changing innovations developed by scrappy inventors, not big corporate R&D labs. We’re looking for people who are designing fantastic new tools, crowdfunding indispensable gadgets, or building life-saving products and technologies. These inventions should solve real problems in interesting and original ways.
Enter the 2016 Popular Science Invention Awards by filling out our entry form at popsci.com/inventionawardsform. And if you have friends who might want to enter, please share this post: popsci.com/inventionawards2016.
Our editors will select 10 finalists to be featured in Popular Science, the world’s largest science and technology magazine, and on PopSci.com. Winners will reach an audience of many millions, plus those of TV, radio, and web shows that often highlight our awardees.
Before submitting, please carefully read our rules below, and note that our entry form will close after 11:59pm ET on November 20, 2015.
Rules:
- There is no fee to submit, and there are no prizes.
- Inventions must be the work of independent inventors or small teams.
- Inventions must be new, not just minor tweaks to existing objects or processes.
- There must be a working prototype, or some demonstration that an invention works.
- Inventions on their way to becoming commercial products are welcome, but they can’t already be for sale (or have shipped preorders, in the case of crowdfunding) before April 2016.
Previous Winners:
- 9th Annual Invention Awards (2015)
- 8th Annual Invention Awards (2014)
- 7th Annual Invention Awards (2013)
- 6th Annual Invention Awards (2012)
- 5th Annual Invention Awards (2011)
Guidelines and tips:
- An invention should be poised to create a market or disrupt an existing one—not be a solution in search of a problem.
- Pictures of or relating to your invention are worth a thousand words (and videos even more!).
- We love inventions that are physical objects and are highly visual, not abstract processes or concepts (e.g. code). This helps us show off the winners in print and online.
- Popular Science will not publish an entry without notifying the inventor first. As part of our rigorous vetting and fact-checking process, we will also contact outside experts to verify the technology and significance of the invention prior to publication.
- Intellectual property (IP) protection is the responsibility of the entrant.
The sooner you submit, the better your chances. The entry form closes after 11:59pm ET on November 20, 2015, but we start compiling the candidates today. Good luck!
