To make its college football simulators, Sanford-based sports tech company XOS Technologies licensed the engine that drives the Madden NFL video game from creator EA Sports. Players can get in a studio with high-tech 3-D motion capture cameras and head-mounted displays that put them into the video action. If the players don't grasp the play drawn on the board, they can run through it with a customized 3-D playbook. The price tag: From $35,000 to $500,000.

Inventor Cameron Gunn has worked full time for two years on bringing his ImpactShield, a formable resister to hurricane-force winds, to market. His patented breakthrough includes stretching heavy polyethylene fabric taut with a crank so that projectiles bounce off home windows. He says it’s easy to install and quick to deploy, and is much cheaper than traditional storm windows.

Kim Bertron and her team invented SimpleShot, a chambered syringe that mixes the drug with a push of the finger and then injects it. The creation came in second behind the grand prize winner in the History Channel’s Modern Marvels invention competition. She is in talks with a medical device company to manufacture it.