Toy Categories

Once a team signs up, they meet to brainstorm ideas for their creation and select a toy category. Teams may select only ONE toy category at the time their entry is mailed.

The toy categories to choose from for TOYchallenge 2009 are:

• Toys That Teach - Toys can help teach people of all ages—growing babies and young children at different stages of their development, older kids, tweens or teens, and adults. For example, there are many things infants need to know to get around in the world. Select a stage (like infant, toddler, preschooler). Think about the things they need to learn: talking, color recognition, crawling, walking. How will your toy teach them? Your team’s creation might also help older students, or even adults learn a subject, or acquire skills that will help them in everyday life.
• Games for the Family - Game design requires problem-solving skills. There are lots of types of games: board games, travel games, electronic games, and card games. The team’s mission is to create a new, exciting game for the entire family or just for themselves. (No video games, please! The only use of ‘video’ allowed is if you have taped a video of how your toy works, which you can show at the Nationals on your own PC.)
• Get Out and Play - Create a sporty toy that gets you off the couch and on your feet! Think of outdoor sports, water sports and extreme sports. Your mission is to create a toy that would make you want to skip, run, jump, climb, swing, throw, swim, or another way to be active.

Once the team has chosen their category, they begin to use the engineering design process to create a toy or game to enter in the Preliminary Round. Your Preliminary Round Entry consists of a written description and drawings of the team’s creation. A prototype is not necessary at this stage.

Again, teams may choose only ONE category to classify their toy/game. Otherwise, the TOYchallenge Directors will choose a category for you.