Chinese college students plunge into the maker culture together with their US counterparts at the annual Young Maker Competition, gaining experience in communication, coordination, and putting ideas into real products. [Photo provided to China Daily]

Getting ideas to work

Zheng says the experience he gained from the competition, such as improving his product and communicating with other teams in the finals, has sparked his interest in the academic field and he plans to further his studies.

He is also determined to "upgrade" his prototype machine into a product, so that his grandmother and many other patients are able to benefit more from it one day.

Samuel Kuhns and his team "Purdue MIND" from Purdue University became the only US team to make it to the top 10.

"The result is minor, compared to the information you've learned, to the relationships you've built, and to the culture you've experienced here," says Kuhns, who was in China for the first time.

The concept of a "maker" originated from Europe, before spreading to the US and the rest of the world.

A "maker" is someone who has ideas and brings them to fruition, and "to actually make something is key", says Fu Zhiyong, judge of this year's competition and director of the Service Design Institution, Academy of Arts and Design at Tsinghua University.