This week sees International Women's Day marked around the world, and a brand new set of custom Lego figures celebrating inspirational ladies has been launched to coincide with it.
UK-based firm Minifigs.me has created five new figures including Rosalind Franklin, best known for her contribution towards uncovering the structure of DNA.
The mini figure line-up also features:
- Amelia Earhart, the first female to fly solo across the Atlantic
- Emmeline Pankhurst, suffragette leader
- Frida Kahlo, artist
- Malala Yousafzai, Nobel Prize-winning female education activist
Each figure has a quotation from their real-world counterpart printed across their back.
"International Women's Day is always a great opportunity for us to celebrate a few of the creative, adventurous, inquisitive, brave and determined women out there," said Caroline Savage, director at minifigs.me.
"This year, we’ve picked a group of women who represent each of these traits perfectly. I want my daughters to play with toys that show the wild and wonderful things they could achieve, so we made some."
Last week, the "Women of Nasa" set was given official approval by Lego and will soon go into production. Featuring five women who have played pivotal roles in space exploration, the set was initially proposed on the Lego Ideas website, where people can submit their own creations.
If such proposals garner more than 10,000 votes from online supporters, Lego reviews the project and decides whether to turn it into something Lego fans can eventually buy.
The set, which is expected to go on sale next year includes mathematician Katherine Johnson, as featured in the Oscar-nominated film Hidden Figures, computer scientist Margaret Hamilton, the first American woman in space Sally Ride, astronomer Nancy Grace Roman and first African-American female astronaut Mae Jemison.
The prototypes for the Women of Nasa set were creating using specially printed parts supplied by minifigs.me.
The firm also created likenesses of British astronaut Tim Peake and his crew for him to take to the International Space Station in 2015 and previously launched a set to celebrate the crew of the Apollo 13 on the 45th anniversary of the ill-fated mission.
The new figures celebrating International Women’s Day are available at minifigs.me/womensday from £11.99 each or £44.99 for the set of five. The Malala minifig has proved popular and the company have said they are now donating 10 per cent of the sales from her and the full group set to the Malala fund.
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
