Girls in Engineering- Comic that explains it all

[JamesBrown]

Originally Posted by JaneYoung

2. We sold Hexbugs as one of our fundraisers. I worked the table a couple of times and I noticed that the boys would come up and say, 'cool' and go running off to find the adult with the money so they could show them. The girls would watch/observe and then ask, 'what does it do?'. The girls seemed to want the bugs to perform a task rather than just move. When told what they would do, the common movement that I saw was a shrug and they'd kind of slide away, still thinking. One of our parents is really great at explaining the different Hexbugs and what they were capable of doing and it appeared that many of the young girls wanted a small task involved.

This is an interesting observation. I am not really sure what to make of it though. What I find interesting about it is how it compares to Zhu Zhu pets. Which offer essentially the same play pattern as Hex Bugs but come in a more relate able wrapper (they look like hamsters). The Zhu Zhu pets were extremely popular with girls (and fairly popular with boys). I wonder how much of this (if any) relates to media. There is little media for girls that give them a reference for robotic bugs, however there is plenty that give them a reference for small animals.