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Innovation Showcase

NASA Tournament Lab

Help develop innovative solutions to the unique challenges faced by NASA in achieving its mission to pioneer the future of space exploration, scientific discovery, and aeronautics research.

View our latest Challenges

Welcome to the NASA Tournament Lab (NTL) Showcase, which provides Solvers the opportunity to develop innovative solutions to the unique challenges faced by NASA in achieving its mission to pioneer the future of space exploration, scientific discovery, and aeronautics research.

Solutions to these Challenges will not only benefit space exploration, but may also further the development of commercial products and services in the fields of health and medicine, industry, consumer goods, public safety, computer technology, and environmental resources.

The NTL Showcase is provided by NASA’s Center of Excellence for Collaborative Innovation (CoECI) through its contract with Wazoku.

What Challenge will you solve today?

Previous NASA Challenges

NASA has worked with the Wazoku Crowd to find solutions for Challenges from across the globe and outside of their industry.

Read more about two of these Challenges, NASA Solar Events and NASA Kevlar below and learn how Wazoku’s Crowd is helping NASA’s vision to discover and expand scientific knowledge and understanding for the benefit of humanity.

NASA Kevlar

Inflatable structures are being researched as a means for long-duration living in space. The research program at NASA hit a roadblock in testing a key material: Kevlar. A range of testing methods had been tried but none suited all scenarios. After many internal attempts, NASA came to InnoCentive. By focusing problem solvers, from outside the industry, directly at the problem, we were able to deliver a range of solutions and new possibilities.

The Challenge

The research team suffered from a 3-year-old problem for how to test Kevlar webbing for its durability in the trying conditions in space. No existing method of testing works for all scenarios, since the best available method would fail at high temperatures. Due to competing priorities, the team no longer had enough resources to give the problem the time and attention it needed.

The Solutions

Seeking outside help from the crowd, the team at NASA offered a $20,000 award for a suitable solution. The award was shared between two US citizens and a Serbian national. Of these, one worked at a medical college, and had no formal background in materials science — his winning insight came from testing samples under stringent conditions.

The Results

With at least two winning solutions from places that they would never normally look, NASA found new possibilities to work with, ending a 3-year roadblock. The force multiplier of the crowd helped to save invaluable time for an over-stretched team. The winning solutions were quick, simple and easy to test.

“This Challenge allowed the team to continue on with other priorities; they do not have time to stop.”

Tom Jones
Deputy Project Manager, Research Lunar Surface Systems

NASA Solar Events

Solar flares have destructive effects on infrastructure on Earth, and also put astronauts at risk when in space. For many years, physicists have been trying to understand solar flares and their effect on the Earth. A major barrier to progress has been the lack of easily available data. Researchers at NASA challenged InnoCentive’s solvers to build a predictive algorithm that would accurately model solar particle behavior.

The Challenge

“Solar particle events” are dangerous to astronauts, who have to take cover in specially-protected areas of space stations when they occur; for this reason, they can also seriously hamper missions. Despite a lot of work, until now there has been no available method to predict the onset, intensity or duration of such events. The challenge was to build a predictive algorithm to say with confidence when astronauts have the “all-clear” as well as, the ability to predict solar flares with plenty of lead time.

The Solutions

In response to this challenge, project rooms were opened in over 50 different countries. The $20,000 award was given to Bruce Cragin, a retired radio frequency engineer from New Hampshire, for his proposed use of ground-based data to predict solar events. His solution dramatically improved accuracy and time-window of predictions, giving a prediction capability of up to 8 hours with 85% accuracy, and a 3-sigma confidence interval.

The Results

The solution has been tested, and teams are now working to leverage the results, building them into current NASA programs.  The solution also provided a fresh perspective and new avenues of discovery to the solar physics community. Since 95% of solvers had never worked on a NASA project before, the agency was able to fulfil its public charter of engaging people through the challenge.

The Center of Excellence for Collaborative Innovation (CoECI) collaborates with innovators across NASA and the Federal Government to generate ideas and solve important problems by working with global communities via the NASA Tournament Lab.

Industry

Space and Aeronautics

Headquarters

USA

Total Challenges Run

17

Visit the Challenge Homepage to view all open Challenges

New to Innocentive? Learn more about Challenges and how to Become a Solver

How does the Challenge process work?

Follow these steps to participate in Innocentive challenges and potentially win awards.

1

Register as a Solver

To register for a Solver account and join Innocentive:

  • Go to the Innocentive Challenge Center registration page.
  • Enter an email address, which will be used to login to your account.
  • Complete the remaining required fields including: (1) Name, (2) Display Name and (3) Location.
  • Create a password. You will be guided to ensure you create a strong password to protect your account.
  • Click the Register button.
  • After you complete the registration form, you will receive an email notification confirming your registration and containing instructions to activate your account.
  • Click the link in the email. You will be asked to accept the Innocentive Terms of Use to complete the account activation process.
2

Review the Challenge Agreement

The Challenge Agreement (formerly Challenge Specific Agreement or CSA) is a legal document that outlines a Solver's rights and responsibilities if they elect to submit a solution in response to an Innocentive Challenge. The Challenge Agreement specifies if and how IP will be transferred between Solver and Seeker; it may also specify any special rules, such as exclusionary rules for categories of Solvers, that apply to the Challenge.

You must accept the Challenge Agreement to be able to submit a solution to the Challenge. Be sure to read and understand the Challenge Agreement for each Challenge because you will be subject to the applicable Challenge conditions.

Challenge Agreements provide Solvers with clear details around participation, legal IP transfer (if applicable), and details around Prize and Scouting Challenges.

3

Submit a Solution

To submit a Solution to an Innocentive Challenge as a member of the Solver community:

  1. Go to the Innocentive Challenge Center.
  2. Select a Challenge.
  3. Click Register Interest & Accept Agreement.
  4. Agree to the Challenge Agreement.
  5. Click Add Solution.
  6. Enter any required information.
  7. Attach your solution files.
  8. Click Publish.

You will receive an email confirmation of receipt of your solution to your registered email address.

4

Win

Receive cash awards or collaboration agreements if your solution or proposal is accepted by Seeker organizations.

Your solution will be evaluated following the due date for submissions. You will then be notified via email as to whether your solution has been successful. In some challenges, you will also receive feedback on your submission.

Award Potential

We've awarded more than $60 million to thousands of Solvers from around the world.

The average award amount is approximately $20,000, but some challenges come with awards of over $100,000 or collaboration agreements.