GoldieBlox Review and Redesign
GoldieBlox is an engineering toy set paired with stories about a female engineer named Goldie. The founder, Debbie Sterling, launched the company in 2012 after finding a lack of good construction toys available for girls. She found that when girls played with construction toys, they typically got bored quickly and prefered make-believe activities. This motivated Debbie to create a toy set that would encourage spatial and verbal skills – a construction set plus stories.
The first set, GoldieBlox and the Spinning Machine, tells the story of Goldie who builds a spinning machine to help her dog, Nacho, chase his tail. What ultimately gets built is a simple Rube Goldberg-inspired machine that spins many characters. GoldieBlox is designed for girls aged 4-9 years old. The characters, colors and storylines intentionally appeal to girls. For example, two storybooks involve princesses. GoldieBlox seems to be taking a page out of Lego’s recent Friends Collection playbook, to “earnestly meet girls halfway in an attempt to stoke their interest in engineering” (Orenstein, p.2). Executives at Lego found that “in order to be gender-fair…they have to be gender-specific” (Orenstein, p. 2). However, not everyone feels this way. Many believe these toys targeted towards girls run the risk of reinforcing stereotype (Gray).
Personally, I commend GoldieBlox for creating a toy set that appeals to girls and can break down any stereotypes of girls as builders and engineers. As for the specific set I played with, the book’s storyline and instructions were simple to follow with great drawings. At the end of the book, there were suggestions for other ‘machines’ to build which offers some variety in play. One critique is around the text. Vocabulary varied throughout the book from simple to very complex (‘centrifuge’). I know GoldieBlox is introducing an app and website in addition to the set so these digital offerings might be great opportunities to be more consistent in lexical density and vary by age, allowing different reading levels. The physical set was mostly easy to handle, though I did have some trouble sticking the pegs onto the board. For younger ages, an adult might need to support. One area to consider for future sets is an opportunity to make the set a more social experience – whether a friend or parent to join in the building fun. This might mean different storybooks for social play versus independent play or offering extra prompts through an app experience.
Finally, the GoldieBlox website offers a way for girls to upload videos of their own creation. It’s a fun sharing experience but I wonder how realistic it is for girls aged 4-9 to make/upload videos. Current videos are all very professional so serves only as inspiration. One feature I really like for the website is the warning prompt when you click to the iTunes store or YouTube. It’s not perfect but serves to draw kids attention and hopefully prevent them from leaving the page. As GoldieBlox moves towards more digital offerings, there will be more challenges in terms of matching digital ability, privacy and security concerns. Instead, I would recommend making these digital offerings geared towards parents or teachers on how best to leverage the physical toy sets and engage their tiny learners.
