Tips for Entrants

We can't tell you how to win... but our previous judges can tell you what they look for in a winning entry.

Before you get to work, read past judges' other thoughts on how you can:

• Stimulate interest in your entry
• Unleash the power of words
• Put the best face on your idea with illustrations
• Conduct proper research
• Avoid pitfalls that can harm your chances

Stimulate interest in your entry.

• Keep it simple.
• Describe your idea, its function, and its benefits as clearly as you can.
• Describe the problem or issue.
• Describe the technical innovation that will address the problem.
• Briefly describe major technical challenges and how to address them.
• Be innovative but also ensure your idea is relatively easy to manufacture.
• Be practical. Strive to give your idea genuinely broad usefulness.
• Be marketable. Demonstrate the idea meets a broad need.
• Submit concept illustrations that communicate the essential idea of your invention clearly and informatively.
• Embrace the imaginative, even the outrageous. What may seem to you a bad idea may well be the seed for a great innovation that no one has even dreamed of. Seize every chance to spark your creativity!
• Be bold and enter your idea—you won't win if you don't! Remember: Your competition is people just like you. Be proud of your idea—win or lose, it's your original inspiration.
• One judge revealed to us his method of reviewing entries: "I look for a concise description of the design and ask, 'Have I seen this before?' and 'Do I think this is useful?' If it passes those tests, it makes it to the 'for further review' pile. "Then, I'll look again at the entries I initially discarded and ask if they are trying to take something similar and existing to a new level. If the answer is 'yes' and the idea is useful, it goes on the final' pile."

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Unleash the power of words.

• "Walk" the judges through your idea. Be organized in writing your description. Show a clear purpose and progression of thought.
• Provide sufficient detail to get your point across.
• Describe what your idea will do, and how it is "new."
• Order your ideas to persuade the judges that your entry is the best—not "good" or "better," but the best.
• Communicate ALL information essential for understanding your idea. Don't leave it to the judges to fill in any gaps (you know your idea intimately, but they don't).
• If your idea is an improvement of something discarded for lack of technology years ago, describe how the new technology will make the new design viable.
• If your idea is complex, describe it so that a first grader can understand it. You'll ensure that all our judges will understand it, too.
• One judge recommends: "Write at least 4 drafts of your presentation and have 2 or 3 people of various levels of understanding review it. This will provide for a presentation suited for the diverse backgrounds of the judges."

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Put the best face on your idea with illustrations.

• Every picture tells a story. Use as many pictures as necessary—but no more than three.
• Provide a picture that shows how things work—not just a CAD drawing.
• Invest the time required to create high-quality, visually appealing renderings that will catch the judges' eyes.
• One of last year's judges gives this great tip: "Renderings should lend themselves to reproduction. Many of the renderings appeared to be pixellated and blurry from reproduction."

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Conduct proper research.

• Start by reviewing last year's winners.
• To ensure your idea is unique and novel, research background literature and the Internet.
• A previous year's judge advises: "For models of good technical presentations, check out Science, Nature and other well-known technical periodicals. You'll see a good cross-section of abstracts and structured papers. The contest emphasizes content, not structure—but in a professional setting, structure is important."

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Avoid pitfalls that can harm your chances.

• Be sure your idea is unique and novel.
• Be sure your idea can be implemented practically.
• Do your research—is your idea better than current, existing alternatives?
• Be detailed in your description and illustrations.
• Avoid ambiguous renderings. A judge recalls, "There was one submission in particular that I could not make head or tail of the renderings or how the device worked."
• If your design is an improvement on a prior design, clearly explain the limitations of the prior design as well as how yours is better.
• Write only one sentence about why you think your idea is good. If it truly is, then the idea will speak for itself.
• Make test printouts and photocopies of your illustrations, to ensure they will reproduce cleanly.
• One judge told us, "A few times, I was influenced negatively by poor grammar." Edit and proofread your entry. Poor writing can sink a fabulous idea. Ask someone you know with good writing skills to read your entry and give feedback."

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