The first time Daxon and Krisi Miller of Lawson, Missouri, brought one of their inventions to store shelves, the entire process took seven or eight months.

When they compete at this month’s Make48 invention competition, the Millers will get only 48 hours to devise a completely new product.

The Millers—along with their teenage son, Max, and a family friend, Ethan Holle—will be among the teams competing at the Make48 on Oct. 28-30 at the Kansas City Art Institute. Inventors from across the country will travel to KC for the event.

On that Friday night, the 28th, Make48 organizers will ask contestants to create a new invention for a particular area, such as the kitchen or the barbecue. By Sunday afternoon, teams will have to present a prototype and a pitch presentation. Competitors will have access to fabrication tools and experts, but it’s still a daunting challenge.

Fortunately, though it’s their first time at Make 48, the Millers have real experience they can draw on. They have successfully launched a couple products, and are busy developing about 20 more.

Their first was the Easy Cake Roller. It’s a special type of FDA-compliant foam that replaces the towels bakers use when making swiss cake rolls, jelly rolls and cake rolls. (The Easy Cake Roller is available at this website, and you should be able to find it soon at Sutherlands.)

The Millers also have introduced the Easy Screw Top Tool, which makes it easier to remove a Jeep’s hard top.

Daxon decided to make the jump into full-time inventing almost a year ago, after 20-plus years in the natural gas industry. He and Krisi had developed a habit of analyzing how things work and imagining ways to make them better.

“We decided to start developing our products last November 2015,” Daxon Miller said. “We’d had lots of ideas over the years, and we decided to start writing them down.”

Interested in learning more about Make48? Check out the contest’s website here.