The idea to combine it with a story sounds great. Perhaps it would also work with classic toys, that is just write stories that use Lego, and skip the new toy?
Some examples as to what you can build with the toy would be great.
GoldieBlox: The Engineering Toy for Girls
11–20 of 113 posts
Re: GoldieBlox: The Engineering Toy for Girls
#12I get the desire for narrative and different colors...but this looks awfully simple-minded. Why can a boy age 5-9 play with erector sets and legos, but a "girl's" engineering toy must comprise such a primitive set of components?
I can see the concerns some people have with legos clearly focusing on marketing to boys, but erector set stuff does seem rather un-gendered to me. I don't know if it has changed, but the erector set stuff I had as a child was just a bunch of stamped out metal parts with nuts/bolts. Not much "themeing" at all. I suppose you can just buy "vanilla" lego blocks too of course.
Anyway, parents know what their kids want more than anyone else, so I think the option of gendered construction toys is great (so long as the market doesn't become dominated by them).
Re: GoldieBlox: The Engineering Toy for Girls
#13Can't hate, I love it. Even the pink and cuddly bits. If this product instead had a blue ribbon and alien figurines with the title "Cyber Drivetrain Blast Kit" it wouldn't raise an eyebrow as a gendered or pandering toy. Legos are for boys when 95% of what's on the Lego shelf is boy pirates, boy laserbros, boy Batman, boy bio-alien-robots tearing the shit out of boy bio-dino-robots, etc.
So only 15% of girls liking engineering is a problem, but girls not liking pirates, batman and bio-alien-robots isn't? Where is the movement to get girls interested in bio-alien-robots?
It's busy pushing the same rock up a hill forever.
Re: GoldieBlox: The Engineering Toy for Girls
#14I really hope that when I have kids, their interests and my location coincide so I don't have to buy them a Toy for Gender. I'd like to let them find out what they like to do.
Re: GoldieBlox: The Engineering Toy for Girls
#15Can't hate, I love it. Even the pink and cuddly bits. If this product instead had a blue ribbon and alien figurines with the title "Cyber Drivetrain Blast Kit" it wouldn't raise an eyebrow as a gendered or pandering toy. Legos are for boys when 95% of what's on the Lego shelf is boy pirates, boy laserbros, boy Batman, boy bio-alien-robots tearing the shit out of boy bio-dino-robots, etc.
So only 15% of girls liking engineering is a problem, but girls not liking pirates, batman and bio-alien-robots isn't? Where is the movement to get girls interested in bio-alien-robots?
Why should girls have to be interested in bio-alien-robots? Gender differences are real, so instead of trying to overcome them, we should do what this toy is trying to do: recognize them and work within them.
Re: GoldieBlox: The Engineering Toy for Girls
#16Earlier quoted context omitted.
So only 15% of girls liking engineering is a problem, but girls not liking pirates, batman and bio-alien-robots isn't? Where is the movement to get girls interested in bio-alien-robots?
Why should girls have to be interested in bio-alien-robots? Gender differences are real, so instead of trying to overcome them, we should do what this toy is trying to do: recognize them and work within them.
Gender differences are real. But interest in bio-alien-robots is taught.
Re: GoldieBlox: The Engineering Toy for Girls
#17I'm somewhat reminded of an ill-fated attempt by the European Commission to attract girls to science with a music video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g032MPrSjFA
I will file this music video under 'So Bad It's Good'. Almost died laughing. Thank you for sharing.
Re: GoldieBlox: The Engineering Toy for Girls
#18I couldn't figure out from the video what the "game dynamic" is of this toy. I see that one arranges the spindles so that the animals spin when the ribbon is pulled. Is the pattern a puzzle for the kids to solve? Do the kids follow along based on the patterns shown in the story? Either way, exciting concept. I wish they explained the game itself though.
The ribbon is actually a functional belt drive. It starts with spinning one animal/spindle, then builds up to spinning all five at once, the way a belt drive would.
For more info:http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/12/09/can-a-ki...
Re: GoldieBlox: The Engineering Toy for Girls
#19I can't figure out if this is a good idea because it encourages girls to explore traditionally male-dominated activities, or a bad thing because it reinforces the idea that traditional construction toys are intended for boys.
Agree with TWAndrews. At the end of the day, if there are girls out there who would not be interested in playing with the boy-oriented sets but WOULD be interested in playing with GoldieBlox, and from there learn that engineering is cool - then the toy accomplished what it set out to do.
Re: GoldieBlox: The Engineering Toy for Girls
#20I really hope that when I have kids, their interests and my location coincide so I don't have to buy them a Toy for Gender. I'd like to let them find out what they like to do.
Odds are, they'll want a Toy for Gender. It's not 100% and I would never push my kids to have a particular type of toy, but gender differences are real.
I have four kids. I've bought many toys that matched stereotypes and several that didn't match. What surprised me the most was, even when we didn't buy toy guns or swords, my boys turned things into them; and no matter what game was being played (and how violent the boys wanted it to be :/), one of my girls always wanted to be the stereotypical girl (the other is a very interesting mix of incredibly girly and not).
We tried very hard to not overly bias our kids, but the bias is in their genetic code. What I like about this toy is it recognizes that while providing a creative play experience. There are few girl's toys that allow you to build something.
The bigger question: do the girls want it? My guess is that they do. Not all of them, but enough to make this kind of toy successful.