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kottke.org posts about scientists

Lego to make set of female scientist minifigs

A proposal by geochemist Ellen Kooijman for a minifigure set of female scientists has won Lego’s Winter 2014 Review. The set, called “Research Institute,” is on track to be released by Lego Ideas in August 2014, more than two years after a campaign that took off with huge support from the internet.

Kooijman designed twelve figures in total, plus accessories. Lego will tweak the final designs and hasn’t announced the specific characters or total number that will be included. Kooijman’s proposed set includes an astronomer, a paleontologist, and a chemist:

female research institute.jpg

Me, I’m a fan of the robotics engineer (pictured below, right, with a falconer and geologist):

Alternate female scientists.jpg

Lego already has one female scientist minifigure, released just last fall (after Koojiman’s original proposal). She’s a chemist/theoretician, with the typical glasses (safety glasses! according to materials scientist Deb Chachra), pocket protector, and laboratory flasks. But scientists have all kinds of tools and look all sorts of different ways, even broader than Kooijman’s all-yellow/caucasian team with generic Lego hair. (“Ideally, Lego would use some ‘rare’ face and hair designs if they were to produce a set,” she writes.)

Besides, go back and look at the composition of some of Lego’s other sets to see if it could use more than one female scientist. Minifigure Series 1 had sixteen characters, with the two women being “Cheerleader” and “Nurse.” The “Scientist” just came out in Series 11, along with “Grandma,” [ok fine] “Pretzel Girl,” [really?] “Diner Waitress,” [ugh!] and the admittedly awesome “Lady Robot,” who loves to party. “Some day she might decide she’s ready to stop partying…but not yet!” Go ahead, be gone with it, Lady Robot.

Update: The retail version of the Lego Research Institute has arrived! It’s Kooijman’s original trio of paleontologist, astronomer, and chemist, with tweaked designs and accessories. Here’s a picture:

Lego Research Final.jpg

(Thanks, @debcha)