My younger daughter (10 years) is someone who likes to do art projects, enjoys building little habitats in shoeboxes, and likes to read and write creatively. When a friend sent me a link to a story about a new company started by two female engineering graduate students from Stanford who were creating engineering toys for young girls, my interest was immediately piqued. I am always looking for engineering toys that will appeal to my daughter’s interests.
The product is called Roominate and the best way I can describe it is to say it’s today’s version of a dollhouse with an engineering twist. For someone who loved playing with a dollhouse, I was very excited to learn about Roominate. Roominate’s building toys are intended for girls, ages 6-10, who like to design, build and decorate. Roominate’s kits consist of modular plastic building pieces, circuits, and motors that allow girls to add movement and lights to their creations.
I bought my daughter the Chateau kit and she got right down to business and started creating her structure. She built a little sitting room that included a motorized fan. She then went on to build a two-story building with a library on top and a coffee shop below, along with real lights (a clear plastic tube lights up).
What’s neat about Roominate is that it includes paper cutouts, so girls can draw and color and add design elements to their creations. In my daughter’s case, she made little books out of paper and displayed them on book shelves, and she cut up little pieces of paper to look like food on plates. She shared, “The paper allowed me to make the space more colorful and look like a real home, library and coffee shop.”
I asked my daughter how she got ideas for her structures and she said she initially used the product sheets that came with the kit to get ideas and then she built upon them. She had ideas for furniture and she liked that she didn’t have to follow the examples but could use her imagination to create her own ideas. She built a bookshelf couch and a cafe with LEGO guys drinking coffee.
My daughter really enjoys building with Roominate and likes that you don’t have to keep it on display, but that you can take it apart and build something completely new each time. I asked her if she would give it as a gift to friends and she said, “Yes! My friends would like it.”
Why do I like Roominate?
There’s a lot to like about these kits. It’s a non-intimidating engineering toy that teaches basic circuitry and problem solving and helps to develop spatial skills in an open-ended, creative way.
I also like that using your imagination is the heart of the product; it’s up to each girl to personalize her own creation.
Here are a few other reasons why it’s a great toy:
- Roominate has a great website to get ideas from and I love that the company showcases actual projects submitted by girls on the site.
- Roominate’s toys strike a good balance of being challenging but not too hard. There were times when my 10-year old needed help from me or her older sister.
- It’s not a one-time use toy; it can be used over and over, turning out different each time.
- The company stands behind their toys. Our motor died after my daughter demonstrated it at a school STEM event (it got handled by many kids). I emailed Roominate and they sent me a replacement for free.
Roominate sitting room, library and coffee shop
Final Note
An elementary school in my town recently held a STEM night and we brought along our Roominate structure to show students what was possible. It was a BIG hit. Girls and boys enjoyed looking at the structure and playing with the moving parts. Quite a few girls stopped by to say they had Roominate and enjoyed building with it at home.
It’s great to see that there are more high quality, engineering toys being designed for girls today. While I am completely supportive of gender-neutral toys and think that girls and boys should play with whatever toys they like best, I do think there is a place for toys that are “girl-focused.” Roominate fits the bill along with other popular building toys for girls including GoldieBlox (construction toys for girls) and LEGO Friends.
