NEWS

Mattel launches Robotics Engineer Barbie

Published on: 28th June 2018

This is a doll designed to pique girls’ interest in STEM and shine a light on an underrepresented career field for women.

This new doll joins a line-up of more than 200 careers held by Barbie, all of which reinforce the brand’s purpose to inspire the limitless potential in every girl.

With only 24% of STEM jobs held by women, the Barbie brand is not only encouraging girls to explore STEM through imaginative play with the doll, but also learn real coding skills. As part of a multi-year partnership with Tynker, the number one game-based platform that has helped more than 60m kids learn to code, Mattel is launching six free Barbie-inspired coding experiences, starting on Wednesday at tynker.com/BarbieYCBA. These lessons are designed to teach logic, problem-solving and the building blocks of coding while casting young learners in different roles alongside Barbie. By leveraging Mattel’s strong portfolio of brands, this ongoing collaboration reinforces Tynker’s mission of making coding and STEM education accessible and appealing to all students by meeting them where their interests lie and providing them with the foundational tools they need to learn to code.

Lisa McKnight, general manager and senior vice president, Barbie, commented: “For almost 60 years, Barbie has exposed girls to roles where women are underrepresented to show them that they can be anything. By playing with Robotics Engineer Barbie on and offline, we are giving girls a new platform for play in their imaginary world and teaching them important skills for their real world.”

This is not the first time Barbie has explored STEM – since 1959, Barbie has held STEM roles including astronaut, scientist, video game developer and computer engineer. The brand also partners with experts in the field to ensure these dolls are an authentic representation of the profession and coding skills.

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