Design Thinking Competitions

Makers Empire runs a Design Thinking competition in the Makers Empire 3D app every month so students can test their design skills against a global community of makers – competitions attract up to 24,000 entries!

This Month's Competition

View the current competition below. View featured entries by clicking on the banner.

Previous Competitions

View the details, winners and featured entries for previous month’s competitions by hovering over the tiles below. Competitions are listed in descending order.

2023

Cook Characters

April 2nd is International Children's Book Day. Design your favourite character and tell us why you look them so much.

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Happy New Year

2023 is here! What hopes and dreams do you have for the world this year? What changes would you like to see? Design something to show us what you think.

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HYear of the Rabbit

2023 is the Chinese Year of the Rabbit. We are looking for friendly, cute and cuddly rabbits.

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2022

Get Decorated

Design a decoration to help your family celebrate a special holiday or event.

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Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

November 15th is World Recycling Day. Every year we take billions of tons of resources from the Earth. Invent something to help reduce, reuse, or recycle the Earth’s resources.

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Put a Smile on your Dial

October 1st is World Smile Day. We are looking for new emojis or mascots to make us smile

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Teddy Bear's Picnic

September 9th is International Teddy Bear Day. We are looking for the cutest, cuddliest, funniest, and most loved teddy bears.

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Dino Days

August 2nd is Dinosaur Day. Create a design to show your favourite dinosaur.

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Life in the Deep

Scientists believe that there are at least 2 million species of sea creatures that we haven’t met yet. What do you think one of the mysterious creatures might look like?

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Space to Dream

Imagine that a child your age is going to live on Mars. They can’t take many things with them. Your challenge is to design a toy or gadget for them to take with them.

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Working Bees

May 20th is World Bee Day. Bees work hard to pollinate plants all over the world. Invent something to help bees with this work.

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Sporting Fun

April 6th is the International Day of Sport for Development and Peace. Invent some new sports equipment that more than one person can use.

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Inspiring Women

March 8th is International Women’s Day. Find out about an inspiring woman from your country. Use your design skills to show us what she has achieved.

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Year of the Tiger

February 1st is the first day of the Chinese year of the tiger. We are looking for the strongest, bravest tiger designs.

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New Year Designs

2022 is a great year for being an awesome Makers Empire designer. Create something that shows your hopes for the world this year.

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2021

Thank You

The end of the year is a great time to say thank you to the people who have helped you during the year. Design something to say thank you to someone special.

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Keep In Touch

World Communication Week starts on November 1st. Can you invent a communication device that helps you stay in touch with friends and family around the world?

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Creepy Creature

We are looking for the scariest, kookiest, and creepiest creatures. Can you scare us?

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Better Breakfast

September is Better Breakfast Month. Invent a new breakfast cereal. Make sure it is healthy and delicious. Breakfast is the most important meal of the day.

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World Water Week

World Water Week starts on August 23rd. We are looking for cool inventions that help save water. How will you protect this precious resource?

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Super Sports!

The Olympic Games will start in Tokyo on July 23rd. Design some equipment for your favourite event.

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Space to Dream

Imagine that a child your age is going to live on Mars. They can’t take many things with them. Your challenge is to design a toy or gadget for them to take with them

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Ride Safe!

May is Bike Safety Month. Can you invent a bike with a new safety feature?

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Perfect Pets

April 11th is World Pet Day. We are looking for the cutest, funniest, coolest, and cuddliest pets we can find.

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Inspiring Women

March 8th is International Women’s Day. Find about an inspiring woman from your country.

Use your design skills to show us what she has achieved.

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Eat Your Greens

2021 is the International Year of Fruit and Vegetables.

Can you invent a new type of fruit or vegetable to encourage healthy eating?

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A World of Peace & Trust

2021 is the International Year of Peace and Trust.

Use your design skills to show us your biggest wish for the world. What does a world of peace and trust look like?

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2020

Terrific Trees

Bring out the tinsel, lights and stars and create a beautiful tree.

Decorate your tree with things that are special to you and your family.

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Kindness Machine

World kindness day is held on 14th November.

What can you design that will help someone else and make their daily life a little bit easier?

Remember when you can choose to be anything- choose to be kind!

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Happy Characters

World smile day is held on October 2nd.

We are looking for the happiest, funniest characters ever.

Design a character that will make us smile.

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Car-Free Zone

Car-free day on 22nd September asks us to leave our cars at home for the day and give our environment a rest.

Your challenge is to design a new form of transport for your whole family can travel in. It needs to move using body power only.

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Creatures from the Deep

We know about more than 200,000 animals that live in our oceans.

Scientists believe that there are as many as 2 million other species that we haven't met yet.

If we don't look after our oceans that's a lot of creatures in danger!

We are calling for awesome designs of your favourite sea creatures. Be sure to create a healthy ocean habitat for your creature too.

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Chocolate Creations

World Chocolate Day is on July 7th.

We are channelling Willy Wonka and looking for the most creative, innovative and marvellous chocolate making machines.

Let your imagination run wild and invent a yummy new way of making chocolate treats.

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Best Friends Forever

Best Friend’s Day is on June 7th.

What does your friend like to do? What are their favourite things?

Make something special for one of your friends and tell us what makes your friendship special.

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Space to Dream

Imagine that a child your age is going to live on Mars.

They can’t take many things with them.

Your challenge is to design a toy or gadget for them to take with them.

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Learning Places

Most of us are spending a lot more time at home at the moment and many children are doing their school work at home.

We think kids deserve to learn in the coolest places and we are challenging you to design the ultimate learning space.

Where would you like to learn? What gadgets and features would you like to have in your learning space?

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Hands Free - Virus Free!

World Health Day on April 7th is a good time to stop and think about how we keep ourselves safe and healthy: we can all do our bit to stop spreading germs.

With the recent coronavirus outbreak, people are being warned not to shake hands when they meet each other.

We still want to greet each other in friendly, polite ways. Can you design a machine or gadget to help us shake hands without actually touching the other person?

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Bully Busters

At Makers Empire we say NO WAY to bullying. Bullying is never okay and everyone has the right to feel safe all of the time.

Design a mascot that sends a strong message to bullies that what they are doing is never okay.

Your mascot might help others stand up to bullies and help people who are being bullied speak up!

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Dream Car

What would your dream car look like? Could it fly? Would it have massage chairs, jet boosters, solar panels, an ice-cream machine or a robot driver?

Design your dream car for the chance to win cool Makers Empire prizes.

Visit Want to go further? Visit www.makersempire.com/dreamcar to learn how you could win a $2,500 Officeworks voucher for both you and your school in Toyota’s Dream Car Art Contest. See T&Cs.

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Year of the Rat

On January 20th, the Chinese Year of the Rat begins.

In the Chinese zodiac, rats are wise, cheerful, outgoing and sociable. They can also be shy, stubborn and greedy. We are calling for rat characters to join our Makers Empire family.

Can you design a cheerful, sociable rat? What about a greedy, shy rat?

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2019

2020 Vision

It's nearly the end of the year and we are getting ready to welcome in the year 2020.

What are you hoping to achieve in the year 2020? Is there something special you would like to own in 2020? What changes would you like to see in the world next year?

Design something to share your 2020 vision

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Flushed Away

November 19th is World Toilet Day. We are looking for innovative new toilet designs.

We all spend time using the toilet every day. Could you make better use of this time?

Maybe you could watch TV, do homework or learn how to play a musical instrument while you are using the toilet. What special features will your toilet have?

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Spooktacular

We are searching for the spookiest, kookiest, scariest and hairiest creatures your imagination can create.

We'd love to see designs inspired by mythical monsters and legendary creatures from folklore.

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Book Bulb

We LOVE reading, and The 8th of September is International Literacy Day.

To celebrate , we want you to design a portable light so you can read in bed (or anywhere).

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Marmaduke's Epic Flight

100 Years ago the first ever aeroplane flew from England to Australia.

Marmaduke hitched a ride as the mascot and now he wants to do it all again.

Help us get Marmaduke onto his next epic flight by designing a new Marmaduke mascot in 3D.

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Weather Extremes

Design an umbrella that would be extra helpful to somebody in either very hot or very cold weather (pick one).

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You're Welcome

World Refugee Day is 20/06/2019.

Imagine a refugee family has recently moved to your community.

Design a gift that reflects your culture and makes them feel welcome.Remember to write a welcome note in the design description.

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Family Treasures

Design a model of an object that has been in your family for a long time.

Explain why this object is special to your family.

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Happy Hats

Design a special hat to keep one of your parents, teachers, or other grown-up friends safe at their work.

For example: a hard hat for a builder, a sun hat for a teacher, a hairnet for a cook… but make it creative!

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Super Women

March 8th is International Women’s Day. On this day we celebrate the achievements of amazing women from all around the world.

We want you to design a statue to represent the achievements of a woman who has made a positive change in your country. It can be a historical figure, or someone who is alive and active today.

Try to show us why this woman is special, not what she looks like - be creative!

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Share the Love

St Valentines Day is recognised on February 14th each year.

We think this is the perfect time to share the love at Makers Empire.

We are challenging our designers to create something to share with someone special.

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Zodiac Zoo

Help us fill up the Makers Empire Zodiac Zoo with cheeky, funny. scary, cute and powerful animals.

Rats, oxen, tigers, rabbits, dragons , snakes, horses, goats, monkeys, roosters, dogs and pigs- we want them all.

Let's fill the zoo with all the animals of the Chinese Zodiac ready to celebrate the Chinese New Year on February 5th.

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2018

The Great Ornament Tournament

It's that time of the year when everyone is decorating their homes with all sorts of ornaments to celebrate significant holidays.

Whether your family celebrates Thanksgiving, Christmas or Hanukkah we are challenging you to design an awesome decoration to get into the holiday spirit.

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Game On

November 19 is "Play Monopoly Day".

To celebrate, we'd like you to design your own game piece.

You can design a game piece for Monopoly, or any other board game that you like playing.

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Terrific Treasure

Let's see your best treasure themed designs for your hero.

What treasures could your hero wear? What could your hero use to help them find their treasure? What treasures could they find?

Remember that finding treasure is not just for pirates. AND please remember that we don't accept weapon designs of any kind.

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Find A Way

If getting lost sounds fun to you, it is time to design a mighty maze you can lost in.

Just remember that there is always at least one way out of a maze.

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Splash Down

Bees need access to water and plants need bees to help with pollination.

Your challenge is to design a landing platform for bees so that they can drink from a water hole that has no where for a bee to land safely.

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Super Gadget

There is a new superhero in town and they need your help to design a new gadget to fight crime and overcome the evil powers of any supervillain they encounter.

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Blast Off

To celebrate International Day of Human Space Flight on April 12 we're asking you to design a spacecraft using the Makers Empire Shaper Module that could be used as a model for future space exploration.

You might like to go online and check out some of the space craft designs currently being tested by Nasa, Blue Origin or SpaceX.

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Feeling Dice

Most emojis are cute, yellow and smiley... but we think there are a lot of other facial expressions and feelings to think about. F

or this competition, create a Feeling Dice with a different mood or feeling on every side.

Think about how you can express your feelings as emojis, be creative and have fun!

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Year of the Dog

Did you know that 2018 is the Chinese year of the dog?

We thought we'd celebrate the Chinese New year by helping Theo the dog who is trying to cross a bridge with his favourite stick but the stick he is carrying is too long!

Theo needs you to design an invention in the Shaper module to help Theo cross the bridge with his stick successfully.

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2017

Wicked Chocolate Chompdown

This month we would like you to get wickedly creative and design a chocolate mould.

Chocolate already tastes awesome and now you can make it look wonderful too. We can't wait to eat, sorry see what you create.

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Let's Get Decorated

We're getting ready to decorate at Makers Empire. So naturally, we're going to need your help.

Design us a decoration that celebrates an event or special day that you and your family celebrate.

Your decoration must be no more than 8cm x 8cm and don't forget to include a hook or loop in your design so we can hang them.

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It's Monster Time!

Journey to the Imaginary land of 'Symmetry' where everything is symmetrical and create your very own symmetrical monster that might live here.

Use the shaper module to create your monster and then use the drawing tool to check that your monster is symmetrical so it is allowed to live in the Land of Symmetry.

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Bubble Blast!

Bubbles are fun! Design a bubble wand. Think about whether you want it to make teeny tiny or really big bubbles.

Share your design with us this month in our Bubble Blast competition.

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Escape to Everywhere

For this month's competition we would like you to design an original bookmark celebrating your favourite book or book character.

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Cookie Characters

To celebrate Minions being back in a new movie why not unleash your creativity and design a unique cookie cutter based on your favourite animated character.

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Marvellous Machines

Calling all inventors. We are looking for the world's most marvelous machines!

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Year of the Rooster

Chinese New Year begins on January 28. It is the Year of the Rooster (Jī)

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