Clorox is pleased to announce their first foray into the wonderful world of design competitions through their new online community Clorox Connects. The brief for the Clorox Maker Challenge is fairly straightforward:Automate household cleaning products to make cleaning, well...enjoyable, rewarding, and even fun! Keep in mind speed, automation and ease of use in your thinking, but then kick it up a notch—how could household cleaning even deliver enjoyment, fun or reward? How could easier and more enjoyable cleaning create other benefits—such as freedom to spend more time with friends and family and do things you love? Consider products, packaging or new solutions that would be affordable and could be available in the market within 5 years.

And if Clorox doesn't have flashy graphics or a star-studded jury, just think of it this way: you could design the next Swiffer or Roomba, giving 20-somethings the world over yet another go-to product for impending parents' visits.We believe household cleaning is due for reinvention. After all:
-Pick-up trucks used to be pure work vehicles. Now Land Rovers and other SUVs are status symbols and comfort on wheels.
- Gyms used to be the place you dreaded going. Now there are gyms with concierges greeting you, mood lighting and cool music to motivate you.
- Workout wear used to be purely functional. Now workout wear is a long way from mere baggy sweat pants - it's self-expressive and trendy.
- Kitchens used to be hidden in the back of houses, purely for the required work of food preparation. Now they are the center of our homes, idyllic odes to gastronomy.

Five years from now, the way we clean our homes will be just as self-expressive, convenient, comfortable and alluring.

In other words, you're competing to design a household product that most, if not all, of your friends will eventually own.

Last but not least, there's a $5,000 cash prize attached to first place, as well as with smaller sums for two second place winners and five third place awards, so register today!