First Prize: Machinery/Equipment
Tire Sensor

The sensor concept pictured above may change the world of tire design. Monitoring temperatures from inside a tire, it allows overheated areas to be detected before the tire bursts.

Though currently intended for prototype tires now being tested, the sensor, designed by Mahmoud Assaad of the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company in Ohio, could someday be installed on standard cars, trucks, and aircraft.

Assaad's concept took a first-place prize in the Create the Future contest, whose winners were announced March 10, 2009.

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