Thursday, 4 July 2013

Rock your little girl's world with fantastic engineering toys from GoldieBlox!

Posted by ReadItDaddy at July 04, 2013 Labels: engineering, goldie blox, GoldieBlox and the spinning machine, toys r us

GoldieBlox and the Spinning Machine - Engineering's not just for boys!

Yesterday we were reminded by BoingBoing of a fabulous construction toy series, created in the US by Debbie Sterling, a female Engineer from Stanford University. In a toy market heavily dominated by male-oriented construction toys (with very few examples of construction toys aimed specifically at girls), Debbie came up with a plan to introduce a girl-friendly range that eschewed cute home-making stuff for real and practical examples of Engineering in action, while also providing a brilliant interactive toy to lure kids away from the iPad screen.

The result is Goldieblox, and the first toy in the range - GoldieBlox and the Spinning Machine introduces various Engineering concepts such as belts, cranks and gears, to girls in an eye-catching package.

Goldie Blox, fab female engineer, is a superb aspirational character for girls - with her tool belt and her trusty animal friends, she can whip up a fantastic contraption in no time at all.

Cranks, pulleys, gears - and a groovy little bear with a briefcase in Goldie Blox and the Spinning Machine

Sadly, the range is only available in the US through massive toy chain Toys 'R' Us but rest assured, Debbie and her team are investigating the international markets, so these brilliant sets may well make it across the pond very very soon indeed (and we'll be first in the queue for them, believe me!)

With a direct interest in Engineering, it's always encouraging to see more and more female engineering students arriving each year to study all aspects of mechanical, electrical and chemical engineering as well as a huge influx in students interested in biomedical and civil engineering too.

It all starts with stuff like this though. Check out Goldie Blox's utterly and completely brilliant promotional video (which we have watched over and over again).

You can see more pics of the sets below. In the meantime we've got just about everything crossed that the toys make it to the UK really soon. We really do want them!