LEGO Adds Even More Female STEM Minifigs, & You Can Vote for Lovelace, Curie, & Others!

We feel that showing kids you can aspire to any career, regardless of gender, is important. That’s why we’re always excited when we see LEGO sets depicting female minifigs in a variety of careers, especially STEM. Take a look at some items currently available in the LEGO store while perusing some of the new Ideas projects worthy of your votes!

Scientific American has alerted us to a few new LEGO sets you might be interested in.

A few items in their space port tag include these minifigs:

Space Scientist

Utility Shuttle Astronaut – Female

Service Car Female Driver

And there’s the McLaren Mercedes Pit Stop:

McLaren Mercedes Pit Crew Member, Female

Deep Sea Submariner Female

Maia Weinstock says LEGO’s Deep Sea Helicopter set is an homage to oceanographer Sylvia Earle. You can check out more in the Deep Sea Explorers section here.

While these are all AMAZING, Weinstock also notes that with the exception of a branded Doc McStuffins‘ Duplo set, “there are no women of color among the new STEM professionals.”

Ok, now onto the voting portion. You know folks can submit ideas to become real LEGO sets? Well there are some fantastic examples right now. For instance, the “Scientists in History” set created by Mibitat.

They write:

“Currently proposed are 8 scientist vignettes, of which 3 or 4 (voted for by you) could be included in the set:

• Charles Darwin is observing a monkey in a tree as he ponders his theory of evolution, struggling for acceptance from the people.
• Alan Turing, pioneering computer scientist,is in his lab working on a code-breaking computer.
• Mary Anning is down in Dorset trying to extract some fossils.
• Marie Curie is in her lab with her equipment as she experiments with radioactivity
• Thomas Edison is in his workshop with his incandescent lamp and gramophone
• Nikola Tesla is in his lab as he observes his Tesla coil behind the safety of a Faraday cage.
• Rosalind Franklin is using x-ray crystallography to observe the structure of DNA.
• Lise Meitner is experimenting with atoms in her lab as she comes up with her theory of nuclear fission.”

Then we’ve got Lovelace & Babbage:

They write:

Ada Lovelace (1815-1852) is widely credited as the first computer scientist and Charles Babbage (1791-1871) is best remembered for originating the concept of a programmable computer. Together they collaborated on Babbage’s early mechanical general-purpose computer, the Analytical Engine. Whilst never fully built in their lifetime, Lovelace’s notes on the engine include what is recognised as the first algorithm intended to be carried out by a machine. Because of this, she is often regarded as the first computer programmer.

And, “Help Ada Junior with her maths homework in the miniature classroom, but just make sure the creepy bat doesn’t steal her beloved teddy bear.”

I die.

And finally, a real geologist has created a set showcasing her work! Circe Verba, research geologicst at the National Energy Technology Laboratory writes:

“I’m a female research geologist with a love of legos- this is a sample of my career. The scene here shows research geologists discovering minerals in a limestone rock formation and the characterization of the minerals in the laboratory.

• The entire project has 213 pieces total. 
• Field geology: A female and male geologist with a dog (there’s always the obligatory geology dog) exploring a crystal cave system complete with stratigraphic layers. Accessory pieces include:  compass/brunton, rock hammer, shovel, and a geology dog.
• Petrographic laboratory: Petrographic laboratory: Mineral analysis performed with a light
  microscope and a scanning electron microscope (SEM) complete with
  an electron backscatter detector to distinguish phases and an energy dispersive
  X-ray spectrometer (EDS) to determine elemental composition using
  microanalysis software.”

Will you be voting for any of these?

(via Women in the World)

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Jill Pantozzi

Jill Pantozzi is a pop-culture journalist and host who writes about all things nerdy and beyond! She’s Editor in Chief of the geek girl culture site The Mary Sue (Abrams Media Network), and hosts her own blog “Has Boobs, Reads Comics” (TheNerdyBird.com). She co-hosts the Crazy Sexy Geeks podcast along with superhero historian Alan Kistler, contributed to a book of essays titled “Chicks Read Comics,” (Mad Norwegian Press) and had her first comic book story in the IDW anthology, “Womanthology.” In 2012, she was featured on National Geographic’s "Comic Store Heroes," a documentary on the lives of comic book fans and the following year she was one of many Batman fans profiled in the documentary, "Legends of the Knight."

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