Dolls go on tour to support women engineers

More than 25 WES members took a Lottie Doll to work between November 6-11 and posted photos on Twitter and Instagram of Lottie doing everyday engineering work.

The project was organised by YMB chair Jo Douglas, who said: “#LottieTour was really successful last year, and we wanted to build on that while doing something a bit different this year. It’s important to show that all girls can be engineers, and using a full range of dolls really supports this message. There’s nothing wrong with liking pink or being more stereotypically ‘girlie’ and still wanting to be an engineer!”

Companies involved included British Sugar, Leonardo, University of Bristol and ARM. It followed a successful #LottieTour in 2016, where Robot Girl Lottie toured the country.

This year, a full range of Lottie dolls were used to show that any girl can be an engineer. As well as the hashtags #LottieTour and #TEWeek17, posts also featured #EngineeringForAll to reflect this change.

The aim of the project is to use dolls to engage KS1 and KS2 girls in engineering and STEM more generally.

Lottie Dolls’ managing director, Ian Harkin, said: “We want our toys to spark imaginations, to inspire hours of make-believe, to let children themselves set the rules.”