I admit I am a
little late to the table (lab table?) only just discovering the August 2014
LEGO Research Institute and its women scientists: astronomer, chemist, and
paleontologist. I heard about it a couple weeks ago, possibly through the
#distractinglysexy Twitter feed in response to Nobel Laureate Sir Tim Hunt’s comments
about “girl” scientists crying in the lab and making male lab workers fall in
love with them (http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-33099289;
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/news-articles/0615/100615-tim-hunt).
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| LEGO Research Institute |
Coincidently, right
after receiving the Research Institute last week through Amazon (sold out
through LEGO), I was going through a pile (big pile) of unread Eos newspapers,
the weekly, now biweekly and online (Eos.org), newspaper of the American
Geophysical Union (agu.org), and found a September 2014 article about the Dutch
geoscientist, Ellen Kooijman, who designed the Research Institute set (https://eos.org/articles/lego-set-features-women-scientists).
Kooijman and others had observed that few female LEGO people came in adventure
or career settings. Scientific American had
a blog post just two weeks ago about the evolution of STEM professional LEGO
women since the first minifigure in 2013 (http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/voices/lego-adds-more-women-in-science-to-its-lineup/).
Designing LEGO
sets in her spare time under the pseudonym, Alatariel, Kooijman works through
LEGO Ideas (https://ideas.lego.com/), a
LEGO site for fans to propose new sets. If proposals gather 10,000 votes, they
are reviewed by LEGO for possible production. Kooijman describes the evolution
of the Research Institute also in her blog post at http://alatarielatelier.blogspot.se/p/female-minifigure-set.html?zx=7fc735e0789785ac
and an interview at http://jaysbrickblog.com/2014/09/14/interview-ellen-kooijman-designer-lego-research-institute/.
Kooijman’s next
set to hit stores, on August 1, is the Big
Bang Theory, based on the popular television show, and set in Sheldon and
Leonard’s apartment (https://ideas.lego.com/projects/58456).
“Science Adventures” (https://ideas.lego.com/projects/83039)
is another proposed LEGO set by Kooijman that is in review, having reached
10,000 votes in less than two months. This set includes an archeologist,
wildlife biologist with tiger, and a field geologist with outcrop, hammer, geologic
map, and Brunton compass.
“Research
geology” (https://ideas.lego.com/projects/93813)
is a proposed set by another designer that still needs about 6600 votes to
reach LEGO review. It has two vignettes 1) an outcrop with male and female
geologists and a dog: “there's always the obligatory geology dog” (been
there, done that, love that!), and 2) a microscope lab setting with SEM and
light microscope (I can fantasize or play that the petrographic microscope is reflected
light, like that used in organic petrology since one needs reflected light to also
check polished SEM mounts).
Some STEM
professionals, including women, appear in the LEGO Minifigure sets (http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/breaking-brick-stereotypes-lego-unveils-a-female-scientist/).
I also bought another separate woman paleontologist minifigure (Collectible
Minifigures Series 13) because she is wearing field gear, and, without her
dinosaur bone and ammonite, can double as any field geologist before the
“Science Adventures” set is released.
I used her for “scale” today in my #FridayFold tweet!
Now to put
together that Lego Research Institute dino skeleton. . .
