With last year’s box-office success of Hidden Figures, it’s only fitting that the trend of promoting pioneering women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) trickled it’s way into the toy world—now, as little figures.
On Tuesday Lego announced the debut of a set unlike any others before it, Women of NASA, highlighting astronomer and educator Nancy Grace Roman; computer scientist and entrepreneur Margaret Hamilton; astronaut, physicist and entrepreneur Sally Ride; and astronaut, physician, and engineer Mae Jemison—each as a mini-figurine.
Welcome LEGO fans! We looked around and couldn’t find a LEGO set that was geared towards inspiring young girls (and boys) to see how much fun engineering can be. After some recent articles and other LEGO releases geared towards girls we decided to work with a well-known LEGO artist Bruce Lowell to create “Ladyada’s Workshop” based on our own Ladyada who runs Adafruit.
LEGO CUUSOO
Ladyada’s workshop is a place where you explore all the cool things you build and use when you’re an engineer! Computers, pick-and-place machine, laser cutter, soldering station and more! In Ladyada’s workshop you can run your own open-source hardware electronics company, complete with Mosfet the cat.
Each Tuesday is EducationTuesday here at Adafruit! Be sure to check out our posts about educators and all things STEM. Adafruit supports our educators and loves to spread the good word about educational STEM innovations!
Adafruit publishes a wide range of writing and video content, including interviews and reporting on the maker market and the wider technology world. Our standards page is intended as a guide to best practices that Adafruit uses, as well as an outline of the ethical standards Adafruit aspires to. While Adafruit is not an independent journalistic institution, Adafruit strives to be a fair, informative, and positive voice within the community – check it out here: adafruit.com/editorialstandards
Stop breadboarding and soldering – start making immediately! Adafruit’s Circuit Playground is jam-packed with LEDs, sensors, buttons, alligator clip pads and more. Build projects with Circuit Playground in a few minutes with the drag-and-drop MakeCode programming site, learn computer science using the CS Discoveries class on code.org, jump into CircuitPython to learn Python and hardware together, TinyGO, or even use the Arduino IDE. Circuit Playground Express is the newest and best Circuit Playground board, with support for CircuitPython, MakeCode, and Arduino. It has a powerful processor, 10 NeoPixels, mini speaker, InfraRed receive and transmit, two buttons, a switch, 14 alligator clip pads, and lots of sensors: capacitive touch, IR proximity, temperature, light, motion and sound. A whole wide world of electronics and coding is waiting for you, and it fits in the palm of your hand.
Have an amazing project to share? The Electronics Show and Tell is every Wednesday at 7pm ET! To join, head over to YouTube and check out the show’s live chat – we’ll post the link there.
Python for Microcontrollers — Python on Microcontrollers Newsletter: Pi Day, GitHub 2FA and much more! #CircuitPython #Python #micropython @ThePSF @Raspberry_Pi
While this is the first STEM themed set to depict real women, it is not lego’s first to depict women in STEM. The now retired “research Institute” was a great depiction of STEM as well.
Each Tuesday is EducationTuesday here at Adafruit! Be sure to check out our posts about educators and all things STEM. Adafruit supports our educators and loves to spread the good word about educational STEM innovations!
While this is the first STEM themed set to depict real women, it is not lego’s first to depict women in STEM. The now retired “research Institute” was a great depiction of STEM as well.