In attempt to encourage today’s kids to peruse careers in STEM, particularly girls, who only hold 24% of these jobs, toy manufacturer Mattel has introduced ‘robotics engineering’ to Barbies career track. The doll itself comes equipped with a laptop used for coding, a pair of safety glasses, and her very own robot accessory. All of which go on sale on Tuesday at the Barbie store and Amazon for £11.
Across the years Barbie has shown herself to be very versatile as her career history ranges from rock star and sports player, to astronaut and palaeontologist. She has captivated and inspired a young audience since 1959 However, unlike Barbies 200 other careers, two of which in computer science, her most recent job in robotic engineering allows kids to join in with her passion and explore STEM themselves, through imaginative play. Mattel has teamed up with award-winning computing platform ’Tynker’ to introduce more girls to coding. with this programming platform, kids can learn basic programming concepts with fun, easy-to-use lessons and with any luck, watching the doll icon pursue her STEM career will inspire the future generations to be ambitious in their own careers, and hopefully see themselves in STEM jobs.
