The winners of the 10th annual Young Inventor Challenge have been announced. Chicago Toy & Game Fair’s youth invention contest showcased a total of 115 original toy and game entries created by nearly 200 children on Nov. 19 at Chicago’s Navy Pier. Entrants came from across North America to participate in this year’s competition. Young Inventor Challenge entries were evaluated based on innovation, presentation, and creativity by play industry experts during the ChiTAG fair.
Prize packages were made available by the event’s presenting partners, Pressman Toy and Target. The Grand Prize package includes a mentorship with Pressman Toy President Jeff Pinsker, as well as a half-day tour of Target headquarters in Minneapolis. The grand prize winners, Olivia Wasilewski and Brynna Siewers, will also have a chance to have their winning game, Ship of Treasures, a pirate-themed treasure hunt game, manufactured by Pressman Toy and made available at Target.
Along with the grand prize winners, Junior and Senior Category Winners selected by ChiTAG’s judging panel will get to spend two nights in New York City and receive a behind-the-scenes tour of New York Toy Fair in February courtesy of Toy Industry Association. During their stay in New York, the category winners will also have the opportunity to present an award at the Toy Of The Year Awards gala.
Senior category winners Julia Herod and Jasmine Erikson took home the first-place prize for their game, Feel to Find, a tactile search game. Junior category winner Tunush Doshi won the first-place prize for his game, Get Wow’d by Wild Kratts, a trivia game based on the children’s TV series Wild Kratts. This year’s People’s Choice award went to Evelyn Dalton and Madeline Niemiec for Creativity Glue, which proved to be a favorite amongst the fair’s attendees.
