Discovery competition series searches for America—s next great innovator

LOS ANGELES — Discovery Channel’s “The Big Brain Theory: Pure Genius” is looking for the next great technological mind that could change the future. Each week, the show presents a seemingly impossible engineering challenge to 10 contestants who have 30 minutes to develop a proposed solution. An expert panel of judges then determines the two strongest engineering concepts based on logic and design and those two competitors select teams to execute their visions in only three days. Now, viewers have an opportunity to submit solutions and win $5,000.

After viewers commented that they could come up with better designs than the contestants, WET Design and PILGRIM Studios created the "Bigger, Better Blueprint Challenge" and are offering $5,000 in prize money each week for viewer-submitted solutions to the challenges on the shows. Each episode, a winner of this challenge will be selected by the show’s judges and receive the $5,000 prize. Information on the challenge and submission instructions are available at www.wetdesign.com/challenge.

In the show’s first episode, contestants had to develop a solution to stop explosives — strapped to the back of two pick-up trucks heading in a high-speed, head-on collision — from detonating. Other challenges include creating a machine that can cook and arrange a meal for a group of tourists hear the Santa Monica Pier; building a portable bunker that can be deployed in five minutes and withstand fire, pressurized water, and high-speed winds from a jet engine; and constructing a robot capable of competing in three different athletic events.