Last year, 1000 'Legonauts' made their way to the edge of space on a high-altitude balloon, but our team noticed one upsetting detail: they were all male.

While this was a SUPER cool thing to see in front of the curvature of the Earth, we feel like we have a duty to make this right. So, in an attempt to reach 'Legonaut' gender parity, our team is planning to send up 1000 of our own mini-figures, all of which will be women in STEM.

LIFT OFF!

We're targeting a new launch date of Saturday, March 30th and a back up date of Sunday, March 31st and are aiming for our minifigures to reach an altitude of at least 100,000 feet.

Where You Come In

But to fund our Legonauts' travel to the edge of space, we need your help! High-altitude balloons are pretty expensive, and we might need between two to three of them to get all 1000 up (depending on weight and balloon design). We're looking for awesome people to donate or 'sponsor a Legonaut' -- and we promise there are some fun perks!

Receive perks based on the level you support our mission at:

Mission Supporter: Donate $10+, and you'll receive a sticker of our mission patch design!
Lift Off! Supporter: Donate $25+, and you'll receive a postcard from the flight team + a mission sticker
Ascent Phase Supporter: Donate $50+, and you'll receive your choice of our flight-proven women in STEM mini-figure from our mission and a mission sticker
Apogee Supporter: Donate $100+, and you'll receive everything from the Ascent Phase perks package + your name will be written on our payload box holding the minifigures while it heads to the edge of space
Balloon Burst! Supporter: Donate $250+, and you'll receive everything from the Apogee perks package + all eight minifigures featured in our flight set!
Descent Supporter: Donate $500+, and you'll receive everything from our Balloon Burst perks package + a mission patch
Mission Complete! Supporter: Donate $1000+, and you'll receive everything from our Descent perks package and a high-res printed image from our flight taken just before the balloon burst.

Custom Minifigure Supporter ($1,000+)

Supporters who donate over $1,000 to our mission will receive the option for our team to create you a custom woman in STEM minifigure based on your inputs! You'll be able to customize the shirt, hair, and accessory (beaker, frog, wrench, etc.) and can honor a woman in STEM in your life! To receive this perk, you must donate prior to March 26th so our team has enough time to create your custom minifigure before our balloon launch!

Note: All mini-figures included in the perks package will only be flight-proven if the balloon is recoverable. While our nominal plan is to track the balloon and recover all of our mini-figures, things happen; the weather can get weird fast, or it could land somewhere unexpected after a gust of wind. We will be as transparent as possible during the mission!

More About the Mission

Between now and lift-off, our team has a lot of work to do! We're a bit new to the world of high-altitude balloons, but we will be working with others in the aerospace/ space industry to ensure the best possible chance at reaching an altitude over 100,000 feet and safely recovering our balloon (and minifigures)! We've been using the website linked below as an awesome reference as we go through our build process and encourage anyone else interested in learning more about high-altitude balloons to do the same: https://www.overlookhorizon.com/how-to-launch-weather-balloons/

February 5 - 9: Mass measurements and analysis -- we need to know how much our minifigures and other payload components are going to weigh so we can properly size our balloon

February 10 - 14: Mini-figure build time! We need to put our minifigures together (and super glue them so they don’t break in the case of a hard landing) and get them prepped for launch!

February 15 - 20: Balloon build time! The next step is to build out the payload box, secure our minifigures, and finalize the design of our high-altitude balloon.

February 21 - 29: Hardware testing! We want to run tests to ensure our GPS tracker, stratotracker, flight computer, cameras, and sensors are working so we don't have to worry about issues on the day of launch!

March 1 - 8: Finalize the launch plan! There are a lot of factors that go into where, when, and how to launch your high-altitude balloon. To ensure it's a safe flight and increase our chances of recovery, we will be evaluating several potential launch sites using online weather models throughout the week before lift-off. By the end of the week, we'll narrow it down to our final launch site and let you all know what time we plan to release our balloon!

March 30: Lift Off & Balloon Recovery

March 31: Minifigures begin being packed and get ready to ship out to donors

Livestream of Launch: We are currently planning to livestream our balloon release on YouTube! As we narrow down our launch date and time, we'll be able to provide more specific viewing information and relative links! If we're unable to livestream due to Internet connectivity issues at the launch site, we will also let you know, and our team will provide live updates across our social media.

Post-Launch Livestream: To ensure a safe recovery, we won't be live streaming during the active recovery process. However, once our minifigures are safe and sound back on the ground and back at our home base, we plan to host a short live stream on YouTube where we will share flight data, including max altitude/ burst altitude, and show you all how our minifigures did during descent! If possible, we'll try to share some screenshots from our mid-flight footage too!

Where to Find Updates: We will be providing updates on our mission, balloon build, and more across Reinvented and our founder's, Caeley, Instagram pages. You can follow along throughout the month of February and in early March by following us: @reinventedmagazine and @caeleystems

Minifigure Back Story

First off, why the heck do we already have 1000+ minifigures hanging around? Great question! At the start of our organization, our creative team actually designed our very own custom women in STEM mini-figure sets featuring doctors, chemists, biologists, engineers, astronauts, and more. They were meant for an event that had a pretty low outcome since it took place on the same day the first case of COVID-19 was reported in our state. So, since then, they've just been taking up space in our office, waiting for their mission to the edge of space.

After some design updates, we will be launching our Women in STEM Minifigures 2.0 series on this flight. This series includes a doctor, engineer, astronomer, astronaut, biologist, chemist, and computer scientist. The new mini-figure designs are shown below:

Huge thanks to JoCee (@jocee.holladay) for helping us update the designs for our engineer, astronomer, and computer scientist in time for this launch! JoCee Holladay is an enthusiastic advocate for promoting girls in STEAM. She has a career as a software engineer, and spends her evenings writing and designing for ReInvented Magazine, Code Pretty, and various other platforms. You can see more of her designs on her Etsy here: https://www.etsy.com/shop/CodePrettyTech

About Reinvented Inc.

Reinvented Inc. is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that develops print and digital resources, leverages social media, and conducts in-person workshops to inspire, engage, and elevate girls and women in STEM. Through our various STEM education programs, we've been able to reach over 117,000 students worldwide in 2023 alone. Over 3,200 girls have learned how to use their first power tool through our Princesses with Powertools Program. Over 100,000 students and educators have read our magazine, seen our empowering princess calendar, or read our online blog, all featuring real women and nonbinary persons in STEM role models for the next generation!

If any additional funds are raised beyond what is needed to fund the flight of our Legonaut mission, all remaining donations will be used to fund our other STEM education programs! All donations are tax-deductible!

Send 1000 Women in STEM to the Edge of Space

We're sending 1000+ women in STEM minifigures to the edge of space, but we need your help to get there!