THE CHICAGO TOY & GAME GROUP ANNOUNCES THE 10TH ANNUAL YOUNG INVENTOR CHALLENGE WINNERS
Media Contacts:
Scott Goldberg
scott@salmonborre.com
Annual Contest Presented by Pressman Toy and Target
Enjoys Its Biggest Turnout Ever
CHICAGO, Ill. (November 2016) – The winners of the tenth annual Young Inventor Challenge have been announced! Chicago Toy & Game Fair’s popular youth invention contest showcased a total of 115 original toy and game entries created by nearly 200 children on November 19th 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.
Fantastic 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.
“The Chicago Toy and Game Fair has done so much to encourage kids to be creative thinkers and develop their own products, and it was truly inspiring to see these young inventors’ inventions. We’re honored to work with ChiTAG and our great partners at Target, but the best part of all will be working with the winners to further develop the winning game,” said Jeff Pinsker, President of Pressman.
“One of the reasons families love to shop at Target is because we have a passion for providing them with the unique products they can’t find anywhere else,” said Nik Nayar, Vice President, Toys and Sporting Goods, Target. “We’ve been experiencing industry-leading growth in board games, and avenues like the Chicago Toy & Game Fair help us identify new and exciting ideas, like that of Olivia and Brynna, that can help us drive continued growth and differentiation for our guests.”
Along with the grand prize winners, Junior and Senior Category Winners selected by ChiTAG’s judging panel will get to spend 2 nights in New York City and receive a behind-the-scenes tour of New York Toy Fair in February 2017 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 were very excited to take 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 30,000+ attendees.
This year’s judging panel featured an impressive lineup of industry professionals, including Dan Klitsner, Founder of KID Group, Darryl Howe, Senior Designer at Buffalo Games, and many more. “We’ve always dreamt of adding a mentorship component for our Young Inventor Challenge winners, and we’re so excited to have partners like Target and Pressman Toy to help us offer this incredible opportunity as part of our 10th Anniversary celebrations,” said Julie Blake, Director of Young Inventor Challenge. “Olivia and Brynna will have a chance to learn so much while developing their game with real professionals at Pressman Toy and Target. We can’t wait to help them share their amazing invention with the world!”
Stay tuned for updates and interviews with the winners at http://www.chitag.com/yic
About the Chicago Toy & Game Group, Inc.
The Chicago Toy & Game Group, Inc. promotes and hosts initiatives designed to encourage and promote the power of play and invention in social, educational, and professional environments. Chicago Toy & Game Group initiatives include the Chicago Toy & Game Fair (ChiTAG), the Toy & Game Innovation Awards (the TAGIEs), Inventor Conferences for New and Professional Inventors and Product Acquisition Executives, the Young Inventor Challenge, the Young TECH Challenge, Play in Education Conference, Discover Games Inventor Co-op, the PlayCHIC Fashion Show, and the Chicago Toy & Game Foundation. For more information, visit www.ChiTAG.com.
About Pressman Toy Corporation Pressman Toy Corporation, one of the largest board game companies in the United States, was founded in 1922 and grew to become a major player in the toy industry when it launched Chinese Checkers in the late 1920s. The company has been a force for innovation in the U.S. toy business for decades, by introducing pretend-play products such as doctor’s kits in response to children’s concerns about getting shots after the discovery of the polio vaccine, and by being among the first toy companies to advertise on TV and to have a female CEO. Pressman’s brands include games that consumers have enjoyed for generations, such as Rummikub®, Mastermind®, Tri-Ominos®, and Let’s Go Fishin’. One of the first companies in the industry to begin licensing popular characters and content for toys and games, Pressman Toy currently manufactures games and puzzles based on properties such as Shopkins, Harry Potter, The Powerpuff Girls, Oregon Trail, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, and Curious George.
About Target
Minneapolis-based Target Corporation (NYSE: TGT) serves guests at 1,802 stores and at Target.com. Since 1946, Target has given 5 percent of its profit to communities, which today equals more than $4 million a week. For more information, visit Target.com/Pressroom. For a behind-the-scenes look at Target, visit Target.com/abullseyeview or follow @TargetNews on Twitter.
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