Alice Brooks, Bettina Chen and Jennifer Kessler After studying engineering, the first two, and mathematics, the last, at Stanford University (USA), decided that they could try to encourage women's love and passion for technology since they are little and appealing to what they know Do very well: playing, creating and discovering and all in a fun way.
And it is that the games of the girls are not usually of construction, nor of electricity, nor of management of structures although that does not mean that they do not like it or that they cannot be fond of that way of playing and learning. Apparently, in the United States only 15% of first-year college students intend to specialize in engineering, science or mathematics, in addition only 11% of engineers are women. So early exposure to science through toys can drive changes. This initiative is compatible with those made by Google with the Science Fair or ESA with Spacelab experiments.
So these three entrepreneurs designed games for girls between 6 and 10 years old, to build a miniature room, a structure with two rooms and a complete building. They have already been packaged as toys and called Roominate.
What is roominate? It is a kit of construction parts and circuit components with which girls can use their creativity to design, build, connect and decorate their rooms and further refine them to make them interactive. They can also be connected to each other to perform complex constructions. In the video (in English) you can see a lot of information about the project and concrete examples with kids playing it.
And although girls like and play dolls a lot, it is healthy that there are other offers to play and contribute to creating these types of hobbies in the future. Although I have many doubts that the love of the game when it is so small can become a profession some years later.
I found it very interesting to know that Project managers were testing prototypes with more than 200 girls at some events and at the San Francisco Children's Creativity Museum. These types of tests, individual, in large groups and small groups, seem like a fantastic test to anticipate whether the toy can be a success or not. It seems to me that it is one of the tasks to which many toy stores have to be dedicated, to build test spaces, to take that experience to the store as well and to facilitate children to try it before taking it home. In this case, these designers with so much practice done, have been able to develop and refine their prototype through what they learned from the game of girls and the observation of what they did with them.
Roominate It can be purchased on its website, although shipments are not yet made beyond the United States. However, on their site they report that you can sign up to know when, depending on the demand, they can send outside your country. It seems that prices are 59, 115 and 225 dollars (over 50, 100 and 200 euros).
