When seven-year-old Charlotte Benjamin noticed that her Lego miniature figurines, or minifigs as they’re known by fans and enthusiasts, were mostly men, and that the Lego sets typically featured male minifigs in the hero role, she didn’t do what most children might do in this situation; She didn’t simply work around the problem, she tried to solve it — she didn’t make do, instead she went straight to the source.

She sent a hand written letter describing her concern saying that “I love legos but I don’t like that there are more boy people and barely any lego girls.” Charlotte sent in her idea for a set that featured more female minifigs for her to imagine herself as in her Lego role playing activities. She went on to say that ” All the girls did was sit at home, go to the beach, and shop, and they had no jobs but the boys went on adventures, worked, saved people, and had jobs, even swam with sharks. I want you to go make more lego girl people and let them go on adventures and have fun, ok!?!” And in just a few months Lego seemed to show that they got the message.

Lego also hosts an Ideas section as an official review process for fans to submit their own ideas for future Lego sets, and a petition was added by a user who wanted a lot of the same things as Charlotte, and indeed many other young girls who had levied similar complaints and petitions over the years. To say that the Ideas petition garnered support would be a massive understatement. After it received an astounding 10,000 votes on the Ideas page, Lego took notice.

In response to the Petition Lego came out with a new set that featured an all-female lab crew called “Research Institute”. A chemist, an astronomer, and a paleontologist. It includes a full chemistry set of beakers and flasks for the chemist, a telescope and star chart for the astronomer, and a theropod fossil display and microscope for the paleontologist. And, again, all of the minifig scientists are Female. Now Charlotte and all of the young girls interested in Lego and science will be able to put themselves into their own Lego creations. We may never know whether Charlotte’s letter was a direct cause of the set, or sets like it, or perhaps it was merely the volume of similar letters over the years in conjunction with the Ideas petition. Either way Charlotte, and girls like her, saw a problem, and, rather than ignoring it, said something. At time of publication the Research Institute set is fully sold out!