Last year, 121 bright-orange, life-sized statues stood tall in Dallas’s NorthPark Center. Each looked just like a trailblazing woman who is currently working in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). The statues were part of a traveling exhibit called #IfThenSheCan—The Exhibit. Six of the statues first appeared in New York City.
To create each piece, the scientists and engineers stood inside a scanning booth. The booth took hundreds of pictures of each person. These pictures were combined to create a 3-D digital image of the researcher that was fed into a 3-D printer. This device builds up layers of material, like plastic, to make solid objects.
Very few of the existing statues in major U.S. cities are of women, says Nicole Small. She’s the chief executive officer of Lyda Hill Philanthropies, the organization behind the project. “We wanted to put really cool role models in front of girls and tell their stories,” says Small. Organizers are currently planning the statues’ next location!