Hot on the heels of the LEGO Research Institute on Shop@Home comes a new LEGO Ideas set titled Planetary Exploration that is gathering a ton of support! I’m in love with the set already, featuring a female scientist/explorer/astronaut, a hover lab, rock formation and an alien!
This set is awesome. Tons of fun things to play with and it’d be great to have someone other than Spaceman out and about exploring the cosmos. Not to mention, it’s a lovely alternative to all the LEGO Friends and LEGO Disney sets already out. (Not that there is a problem with those, but outside of those two lines, it’s hard to find any girls in the regular sets.)
Where were these when I was a kid? I just showed all the photos from the LEGO Ideas project site to my 3 year old and she loves them! Well, with the exception of the alien and pet… I think they kinda scared her a bit!
Regardless, I hope it gets voted up and created. I don’t even care if it is because LEGO is riding the feminist wave in the wake of a letter from the 7 year old girl earlier this year. Yay us for reaping the benefits!
So off I go to create an account on the LEGO Ideas site to vote!
How do you like the set? Are you planning on voting, too?
Here’s what happened to me:
When that planetary exploration project first came up I didn’t care. A space girl on a hover-thingy.
Yawn. I can throw together any number of space girls when I visit my local Lego store.
And hover-thingies have been done in large numbers by the classic lego space enthusiasts.
I looked it up again when it started getting supporters.
What made this project click was 1) the level of detail in the hover-thingy. It’s not just a “flying car”, it’s a complete lab with lots of detal.
2) there’s the alien landscape. Rather bizzarre. And it really can be explored. Play-value!
Oh, and we have an alien. With a beast of bourbon. Burden. Sorry. And this alien has his own little playset.
None of the elements I saw had “conflict” (neither armed nor social) written over them. Like in some of the more “aggressive” space-related themes.
I would think that this set is really neutral. There’s a scientist who just happens to be female doing some exploratory work and making what be a first friendly contact with an alien species. That’s (at least to my impressionable mind) a very nice and non-sexist scenario.
Thank you for stopping by, Dr. Södel! I’m so glad to hear someone else can see past the gender of the explorer to the potential of the set!
I obviously didn’t get to see it when it first appeared. It’s good to hear it has actually improved! I’m with you about all the details on the hover lab… just so much to play with!
Also, I do like as well that there is no aggression to the scenario, unless, of course, a little imagination decides to make-believe that way. Good to hear someone else likes the set for its more neutral elements.