An amazing new start-up has gained quick recognition just in time for the holidays. This company is called GoldieBlox, and has games that expose girls to engineering. While there is nothing wrong with girls playing with dolls, tea cups, and kitchen sets, there needs to be more variety. Imagine girls growing up not thinking that fire trucks, tool sets, and Legos are boy toys – maybe they would actually be interested in them and turn it into a career or hobby someday. The founder, Debbie Sterling, is hoping to teach girls problem solving skills at an early age and get more girls interested in science-based careers.
Not All Girls Want to be Princesses.
IMG: via Shutterstock
“We are all more than princess maids! Girls to build the spaceship. Girls to code the new app. Girls to grow up knowing they can engineer that.”
The video the company recently launched, the “Princess Machine,” went viral and got everyone’s attention. It shows 3 tough girls using their “girly” toys to create a conveyor-belt maze, which opens the garage door and turns off their TV full of girly commercials.
The video is set to the Beastie Boys song “Girls,” but with inventive new lyrics.
“We don’t have a national shortage of princesses,” Sterling said in a video. “But we do have a national shortage of engineers.”
“We just want girls to be able to use their brains a little more,” said Sterling.
GoldieBlox is a set of interactive books that are combined with construction. The stories encourage concepts and skills that are essential for engineers, such as verbal and spatial skills.
The toy line is available at retailers like Amazon, Books-A-Million, and Toys “R” Us. They are fairly inexpensive, ranging from $10-$30 dollars – so they make the perfect Holiday gift. They are available in the U.S. and Canada.
Sterling has said that toys can shape children’s identities and what they think about when making career choices. If they were exposed to something as a child and enjoyed it, they may consider it as a career. Around the age of 4 is a critical time when kids start thinking about what girls and boys are “supposed” to like and what they want to be when they grow up. “We’re changing that conversation,” she said in a recent CNBC interview.
“Engineering is such a boys club and that starts at an early age,” Sterling said. “It’s important we important we introduce a bunch of different options.”
