Pitch Your Prototype… And Win $5,000

Want a chance to win $5,000 and be featured at MakerCon New York this September? If so, consider entering the Pitch Your Prototype contest, a collaboration between Make: and Cornell University with the goal of digging up promising prototypes from the Maker community.

Maybe you’ve been working on a wearable, or wrestling with a Raspberry Pi. Regardless, don’t be afraid to put yourself out there by entering—contestants in previous Make: contests have included an aerial film platform, plushies modeled on video game characters and an outrageous four-wheeled bicycle made from recycled materials.

After the entry period ends on April 30, a community of online voters and judges from Make: and Cornell will select five finalists. Then, a panel of judges will select a winning contestant from that top five, which will awarded a $5,000 grant and announced at MakerCon New York in September.

To enter Pitch Your Prototype, your team of four or fewer collaborators will be asked to provide a project description, up to eight photos and an optional video, all of which will then be publicly viewable online—so you can show your friends and family what you’ve been working on, or keep an eye on what your adversaries have cooked up.

Read the complete rules here. Below are the highlights:

• The contest begins February 18, 2015!
• The contest ends at 11:59pm PT on Thursday, April 30—which gives you just over two months to pull together your submission.
• Don’t procrastinate, though. The earlier you get your prototype online, the better the chance your project will be featured on the Make: blog.
• Pitch Your Prototype entries must be new products that are not yet on the market and not currently posted on a crowdfunding site.
• The winner will be announced at MakerCon New York during the week of September 21.
• Judges and online participants will vote for prototypes based on their applicability to a real world problem (30%), commercial viability (30%), originality (25%) and the quality of submission materials and documentation (%15). Judges will also pay attention to marketing efforts (5%), so don’t forget to promote your prototype.

Even if you don’t opt to enter the Pitch Your Prototype contest, consider signing up for Maker Faire Bay Area (May 16-17), Maker Faire New York (September 26-27) or MakerCon New York. These flagship events for the Maker Movement combines elements of science fairs, hackathons and community festivals into something totally new.

Check out this gallery of contestants from previous Make: contests:

A lifesize, lifelike raptor to walk around the faire.

Make your own toy and learn about electricity, circuits, motors and LEDS!

DARwIn-OP is an acronym for Dynamic Anthropomorphic Robot with Intelligence – Open Platform or DARwIn for short.

Travel chess set that you can play a 3 dimensional game on! When finished everything packs flat! Perfect for your hectic on the go lifestyle! Fits easy in any backpack or purse!

This was a three year build aimed at making an exact, hand made, animatronic replica of the robot WALL-E, from the film of the same name.

The Hello World Program is an educational puppet show for aspiring makers to learn about robotics, electronics, programming and digital media.

Can you find the combo and light the light?

Custom Prosthetics and Super-human Armor systems.

Worlds first rubber band shotgun kit with 3 modes of firing.

AirBnb for Makers. ThingShare is a Collaborative Consumption platform for makers to share tools and consumables.

High School students convert truck completely electric.

Is it a time machine? A MIDI controller? A sound board? An art sculpture? Yes! We just call it awesome.

The UW student organization for 3D printing is back with a second full-sized 100% recycled milk jug boat.

Dependable and stylish commuter transportation at ten cents for a 40 mile trip.

Make your own stylish custom computer case using only common hand tools and minimal skills. Is your style art deco, mid-century modern, mission, or modernist? I’ll show you how to adapt that style to a computer case that would be proudly displayed in your equally stylish office or living space.

Building a 3D Molten Glass Printer with a Vitrigraph kiln.

WaterBoy & BubbleHead are underwater performance art – on land! Part spectacle, part mad science and part tent revival, WaterBoy is hard to explain but impossible to forget.

Using a 3d printer, CNC Router, Arduino, attiny85 and simple electronics, I’ve encased a tickle-me-elmo doll in Carbonite, like Han Solo, and it still wiggles, giggles, and tickles.

Using 3D printing, 3D scanning, & 3D modeling to imagine a better future with kids around the world.

Unique wheelchairs, scooters, BBQ grills robotic ice chest and fire machines!

Trailer mounted “Human Power Conversion Unit”. Allows up to sixteen operators; working as a team, to drive a capstan style interface. The teams collective kinetic energy is converted to A/C power via gearbox and generator. Power is used to operate lights, powertools, and battery chargers to store energy.

Build marble runs using only paper and tape. The Paper Roller Coaster templates have been used in schools in all 50 states and over 25 countries. It’s a great hobby for anyone that likes origami or engineering.

Environmental Monitoring System powered by Arduino, Solar Energy, and Wi-Fi with a custom-built web and mobile API for visualizing data.

ModelBox 3D is a fast and affordable 3D rapid prototyping solution. You can take any 3D model, slice it with our software, print it using a standard inkjet or laser printer and create a real sculpture in 15 minutes for a fraction of the cost of other 3D printers.

My repurposed life brings to you old and comfortable sweaters transformed into beautiful and practical purses and accessories.

Garden lights that sparkle when the wind blows. The stronger the wind blows, the more they light up.

Think of a giant sized ant farm, the windmill, the farm and the field, but in the field something is moving….it’s a gopher!

Arduino Powered Wall Drawing Robot

A simple laser light show with 3D printed parts, motors, mirrors, potentiometers, and some batteries.

Robotic Drawing Arm Kit

MuMu watching and re-projecting Mei’s memories.

TARDIS Tesla is a lightning performance/game involving two large tesla coils, a replica TARDIS, and sonic screwdriver TV remotes.

ChipiKart is a very tiny electric racer. It’s all the fun you can fit into a lawn tractor seat.

The Common Room community aims to spontaneously redefine space as a semi-public living room for concurrent creativity. In The Freeform Common Room we’ll use everything from basic knitting to hyperbolic crochet techniques to enable makers to bring out the whimsy in everyday spaces. Let your collaboration be the exhibit.

A modular N scale model railroad enhanced with Arduino-powered features.

Make an Artificial Flower That Lights Up When You Water It with Lemon Juice.

Have you ever wanted to tattoo classical works of art onto a banana peel. Of course you have!