Boy Scouts get Game Design badge
Programming, animation, CAD and 'digital technology' also in the works
The Boy Scouts of America have created a merit badge in Game Design.
Unveiled at tech-and-culture-fest SXSW, the badge's premise appears to be that playing a game can be just as challenging as traditional scouting activities like camping and hiking.
Playing games of all sorts, the Scouts say, “... challenges us to overcome long odds, tell compelling stories, and work with or against one another.” Games also “motivate both young and old to find creative solutions, practice new skills, and keep their brains active.”
The BSA (that's the Boy Scouts of America, not the Business Software Association/Software Alliance) says two years of work by “volunteers from the game industry and game enthusiasts across the country” resulted in a list of requirements that will see would-be badge-wearers required to “analyze different types of games; describe play value, content, and theme; and understand the significance of intellectual property as it relates to the game industry” before they are awarded the prized patch (the latter element is why we explained just which BSA we're talking about here).
The badge isn't necessarily technology-dependent, as the badge can be won for designing games using cards, boards, dice or computers.
But other forthcoming merit badges will see scouts eschew camping in favour of coding. A programming badge is set to be introduced at the BSA's 2013 Jamboree in July, while badges for computer-aided design, animation and something called “advanced computing” will emerge in 2014 and 2015. ®
COMMENTS
That's fats not scouts.
You can't do those things outside so they're not what scouts are expecting to do, they should just set another club up called fats for those things just so that something remains for the active folk.
In what way would you argue that they are not?
There are huge waiting lists in the UK as there aren't enough adults willing to become leaders for everyone who wants to join to be able to.
Computer badge
Heh, I had a Computer badge when I was in Scouts in Britain back in the mid 80's.
I had to write a program (on my Oric) to let someone enter a list of teams in a league and then enter their scores weekly or what have you. The program had to award points (3 for a win, 1 for a draw) and then sort and display the league table after each week. It was supposed to save the league to tape as well but the examiner let me off that bit due to the slight problem that the Oric-1 had a ROM bug preventing the saving of data (as opposed to whole programs). I don't think I ever met another Scout with that badge (at any meeting of Scouts, they secretly look at the arms of their colleagues to try and work out relative status).
