“Crowdsourcing remains one of Army Mad Scientist’s most effective tools for harvesting ideas, thoughts, and concepts from a wide variety of interested individuals, helping us to diversify thought and challenge conventional assumptions about the Operational Environment.”
[REMINDER: Army Mad Scientist is CALLING ALL CREATORS with our Multi-Media Contest for imaginative thinkers who seek to showcase their ideas about Army Transformation in novel, alternative ways. Check out the following post, consult your inner muse, unleash your creative talent, get cracking developing your entry, and submit it to ArmyMadSci@gmail.com — Deadline for submission is this Friday, 14 February 2026!]
Army Mad Scientist announces its CALLING ALL CREATORS 2026 ~ An Army Mad Scientist Multi-Media Contest. This contest seeks to harness the talents of imaginative creators who want to showcase their ideas regarding the following Army Transformation Challenge:
Contemporary conflicts around the globe have demonstrated the ever-increasing speeds at which warfighting innovations are being fielded — granting a combatant decisive battlefield advantage — until effective 
countermeasures are fielded by an adversary. These rapid cycles of innovation and counter-innovation currently provide only a few weeks (at best) of advantage.
How can the U.S. Army and Joint Force break this cycle and field robust and resilient capabilities that provide enduring battlefield advantage?
Explore your ideas within the context of defending our Homeland or protecting our Allies and partners in the Indo-Pacific.
Media: We want to hear and see what our Mad Scientist Community of Action has to say about this Army Transformation Challenge in novel and exciting new ways, including, but not limited to:
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- Haiku / Poem / Spoken Word
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Cartoon or Comic Strip – this could be something as simple as stick figures, riffing on Doctrine Man! Check out Kryptós by previous contest winner and proclaimed Mad Scientist CPT Katherine Hathaway (USA-Armor)
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- Music / Lyrics
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- Short Video — 1 minute or less, using live action, animation (e.g., Legos, action figures, modeling clay, drawings) or a combination thereof — the
sky’s the limit! Check out this short sample, derived from Located, Isolated, and Distracted – An Infantry Platoon Leader’s Experience, by proclaimed Mad Scientist COL Scott Shaw
- Short Video — 1 minute or less, using live action, animation (e.g., Legos, action figures, modeling clay, drawings) or a combination thereof — the
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- Drawing / Painting
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- Augmented Reality / Virtual Reality
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Illustrated essay or Fictional Intelligence (FICINT) scenario/vignette — limited to 1200 words! Check out Alternate Futures 2050: A Collection of Fictional Wartime Vignettes, by LTC Steve Speece
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Basically, Army Mad Scientist is accepting any type of creative expression — exploring the aforementioned Army Transformation Challenge — that can be captured and submitted!
Contest Guidelines:
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- The use of Artificial Intelligence in crafting your submission(s) is encouraged
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- Items must be unclassified, unpublished, and approved by your public affairs office (as required)
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No affiliation with the U.S. Government is required – open to anyone and everyone on the planet…
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- Team and individual entries welcome!
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Multiple contest winners may be selected by our T2COM G-2 panel of judges, based on the categories of submissions received. These winners will be proclaimed official Army Mad Scientists, with their submission featured here on the Mad Scientist Laboratory blog site!
Entries: Send your submissions and any questions you may have to: ArmyMadSci@gmail.com
Deadline for submission is 14 February 2026!
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this blog post do not necessarily reflect those of the U.S. Department of Defense, Department of the Army, or the Transformation and Training Command (T2COM).
As a lifelong teacher at all the grade levels, I can tell you the Mad Science initiative is brilliant, but is only scratching the surface of the leverage that could be created if there were a program that allowed participants to take this on as a part-time, remote job so they could devote more time and part of their pay to pursue courses and experiences that would ramp up their ability to more easily interface with the military out at the leading edge.
What is more, the opportunity to feel pride and a sense of belonging from having a real position would create powerful scale up (in numbers and in intensity of engagement) among exactly the outside-the-box and offbeat thinkers who could not conform well to full-time enlisted roles nor to juggle this on top of a full-time day job. We are collecting rainwater when there is an underground spring just below the surface.