Inspiring children and teens through the wonder of play
Purdue University's 2024 Engineering Gift Guide (released 11/19/2024) is filled with 40 gifts to help children and teens better understand and develop an interest in microelectronics. This year, we partnered with SCALE K-12 and GM Foundation to find microelectronics-themed gifts. Scroll down to view the top 10.
For 11 consecutive years, our annual gift guide has helped millions of parents and caregivers to choose thoughtful, engineering-inspired holiday presents that encourage kids to design, build, code, play, and discover how things work. In previous years, the guide featured engineering-based games, toys, and books with the potential to help children explore what it means to be an engineer. This year, Purdue focused on a specific aspect of cross-disciplinary engineering called microelectronics, which refers to the design and manufacture of very small electronic designs and components typically made from semiconductor materials.
The gift guide is produced by INSPIRE Research Institute for Pre-College Engineering, a research program within Purdue's School of Engineering Education (ENE) dedicated to integrating engineering with science, math, and language arts in pre-college classrooms. INSPIRE engages learners and promotes participation of all students in engineering.
Purdue ENE faculty and staff led a dedicated Student Research Team to evaluate gifts in three microelectronics-related categories: 1) circuitry, 2) robotics, and 3) coding/programming.
