02/03/2017
This is great!
A new fan-designed LEGO set honoring women of NASA is heading to production! In an announcement yesterday, LEGO confirmed its approval of the "Women of NASA" set created by Maia Weinstock. The LEGO fan and science writer proposed the set on LEGO's crowdsourcing design platform, LEGO Ideas, which allows fans to come up with ideas for new LEGO sets. Weinstock's proposed set honors five women who made major contributions to the U.S. space program with five minifigures, a desktop display frame, and vignettes depicting their accomplishments. "We are really excited to be able to introduce Maia's Women of NASA set for its fun and educational value as well as its build and play experience," said LEGO manager Lise Dydensborg. "Lego set designers are already working hard on the production model of the Women of NASA set."
When Weinstock proposed her set on LEGO Ideas, she received the required 10,000 votes to be considered for production in a record 15 days. Now that it's been approved, LEGO designers will develop a final design. Weinstock's proposed set pays homage to five NASA scientists: Margaret Hamilton, the computer scientist who designed the on-board flight software for the Apollo moon missions; Katherine Johnson, the mathematician who hand-calculated trajectories for the Mercury and Apollo launches; Sally Ride, the first American woman in space; Nancy Grace Roman, the astronomer who played a lead role in designing the Hubble telescope; and Mae Jemison, the first African-American woman in space.
Weinstock designed her set to increase awareness of the contributions these women made to the space program and to science as a whole. “In many cases, their contributions are unknown or under-appreciated — especially as women have historically struggled to gain acceptance in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM),” she wrote in her proposal. “This proposed set celebrates five notable NASA pioneers and provides an educational building experience to help young ones and adults alike learn about the history of women in STEM.”
Fans now hope that LEGO will make this set widely available once it's released in late 2017 or early 2018. After LEGO produced another LEGO Ideas fan-designed set featuring three female scientists in 2014, it was only available as a limited release set on the LEGO website. After it rapidly sold out, many fans were disappointed that the company did not re-release it. Hopefully, the new "Women of NASA" set will be released widely, and be available in LEGO stores. As Weinstock wrote to The Washington Post, it's "critical to have toys that girls can look at and play with and think, ‘that's me!'’ or ‘that could be me!’... I also just hope that girls *and* boys will take away from it the sense that women belong in engineering, in mathematics. I hope in some small way it helps to inspire the kids of the future!”
Kudos to Maia Weinstock & LEGO for bringing this set to life! To read more about it in The Washington Post, visit http://wapo.st/2m9N7pF
To introduce more gender diversity into your children's LEGO collection, also check out the Community Minifigures Set which features 22 figures including many female characters in a variety of community roles such as doctor, firefighter, and computer programmer at http://www.amightygirl.com/lego-community-minifigures-set
For books to introduce your kids to a few of these inspiring women, check out “You Should Meet: Mae Jemison” for ages 6 to 8 (http://www.amightygirl.com/mae-jemison-1), “Hidden Figures: Young Readers Edition” for ages 8 to 12 (http://www.amightygirl.com/hidden-figures-young-readers), and "Women in Science: 50 Fearless Pioneers," for ages 9 and up at http://www.amightygirl.com/women-in-science
You can also find several books for all ages about the trailblazing Sally Ride in our "Sally Ride Collection" at http://amgrl.co/2bPNP8a
To find more LEGO sets featuring female characters and minifigures based on women, visit our "LEGO Collection" at http://bit.ly/2mvfQXl
And, for more empowering building toys to encourage your Mighty Girl's interest in science and engineering, visit our blog post, "Building Her Dreams: 50 Building and Engineering Toys for Mighty Girls," at http://www.amightygirl.com/blog?p=10430
