If you are a Scouting Robotics Merit Badge counselor I’d like to talk to you. I’m trying to gear up for the 2013-14 merit badge season and would like to know how you are making out getting scouts through the process.
I’m also looking at the Programming Badge and looking to see if I can do some overlap on the two badges. I think the Robotics programming can count towards one of the programming elements.
Private message me, or if you are up for it, post your past experiences here.
I’m working on my eagle project and I still don’t have this merite badge. Finding a counselor is hard for this badge in Las Vegas. 
I’m partly a counselor. Don’t tell anybody, but I’m not old enough. 
I just help out with the building/programming portion. There’s a programming merit badge!? Looks like I’ll be getting an Eagle palm
I can P.M. anybody who needs the presentation I give. (It includes a CAD model and shameless self-promotion). It uses only the basic kit… you can see what I’m talking about if you ask lol
Foster, expect a p.m. tonight
Tabor, what’s your project?
I am fixing up the decorations and games for my elementary schools Halloween festival.
I’m going in for my Eagle BOR in 5 days and finding a counselor for the badge was hard (there are none to my knowledge :P) in Vermont. I really wish I would have been able to obtain this merit badge because the requirements are done by every VRC team.
But a little of topic but still having to do with Scouting. How many people here are part of a BSA troop?
I really wish I was part of a BSA troop growing up. Then again, I moved all over the place and finding some where I lived was hard.
On topic, because I was under a 2-weekend time crunch when I started being a counselor for the robotics merit badge, there were a lot of ideas and things I wanted to implement that I couldn’t. Namely the design and description of the robot and really just the entire documentation. And an actual challenge for them to complete.
Looking at the programming merit badge requirements, there is definitely some overlap between them and robotics is a cool way of showing an application of programming.
Just wanted to pop in–of all the merit badges I have, the one I am most proud of is the Robotics merit badge. I actually got one of the 50 (or was it 100?) that flew on the Space Shuttle… 
On a scouting/robotics-related note:
I passed my Eagle BoR in July. My project was to lead a VEX workshop to help teams and coaches in the Roanoke/Lynchburg region of Virginia. In our area, a lot of teams start at the beginning of the spring semester of school, and have to play quite a bit of catch-up to even try to compete against teams like 177, 1575, and 12 (those are the main teams that I remember coming to a regional down here).
Because of the project, the Lynchburg tournament had four new teams compete that otherwise would not have done so.
I’m saying this partly because it is a “unique” project–most in my area involve building a picnic table, or a gazebo, or a ramp, or… (etc). This project didn’t involve building a physical object, but rather enabled me to demonstrate administrative leadership by organizing volunteers to help out, meeting space for the event, promotion, and communicating with the workshop attendees. For anyone out there considering a project that deals with robotics: I strongly encourage you to do it, but I’ll warn that it may not be easy to get approved. (change is hard)
Also: VEX got some publicity in my area as a result of the project; it was on the front page of a local newspaper, and a synopsis of the project was written up in the Stakeholder Report that goes out to major donors towards Scouting in the Blue Ridge Mountains Council area.
If I proceed to an adult leadership in my troop (I’m 18 now), I’ll certainly be a councilor for both Robotics and Programming (how I wish that badge was out when I was a scout).
//Andrew
That sounds really awesome! Congrats on doing that! I just passed my BOR tonight so another Eagle in the world
FYI: Foster has a similar conversation running on CheifDelphi at this link
Here is an extract that folks here might be interested in:
foster:
If you are a Scouting Robotics Merit Badge counselor I’d like to talk to you. I’m trying to gear up for the 2013-14 merit badge season and would like to know how you are making out getting scouts through the process.
I’m also looking at the Programming Badge and looking to see if I can do some overlap on the two badges. I think the Robotics programming can count towards one of the programming elements.
Private message me, or if you are up for it, post your past experiences here.
rfolea:
Hi Foster. I worked on the Robotics Merit Badge and was the Team Lead for the new Programming Merit Badge. How can I Help?
Foster:
I’m looking for things like rsisk posted about doing the robot build as a separate set of actions in a setting like a camp.
It turns out there is not a lot of Robotics counselors out there, so there is a demand in my area. I’m looking for clever ideas to maximize scout involvement and lessen what I need to do per scout.
Another stumbling block for troops is the parts required to build even a simple robot, so I’m trying to see how smaller, less expensive robots (Lego E3, Vex IQ) can work out. Right now I use (and reuse) VEX Metal to build simple protobot clones for single scouts, or push them to join a robotics team to get the build part completed.
I’m also looking for how to overlap Programming Badge requirement 5 (write programs) so they can get a running start on that Badge.
rfolea
We do several things in this area.
Recruit school teams to do single day robot merit badge camps. They use it as a fund raiser and community out reach and Scouts are happy to pay $25 to come do it. win win.
Summer Camp. We got a local sponsor to donate a few thousand dollars so we could purchase a dozen vex kits to use for robotics merit badge at summer camp. During the off months those kits are available for anyone to use. Each kit is in a covenient tupper waretub and easy to transport. The key here is to make doing inventory part of the closing task.
In one day we can. usually build two robots, have two or three mini competitions, and cover all the requirements.
FYI … we just launched the programming merit badge at the jamboree. We had the kids program vex robotic arms, PLCs (factory controllers) and arduino embedded processors. The scouts thought that was awesome. We ran over 820 Scouts through that booth. Many of those scouts then went next door and did the robotics merit badge where they got credit for programming. (robotics used the new vexiq).
Side note - someone made a post that said finding merit badge counselors for robotics was hard. I’m not sure I understand that. You just grab the form, have your robotics coach sign it and you are done. If he/she is not already a member of BSA, they just fill out that form too. It costs nothing to sign up as a counselor and I would be surprised if most mentor wouldn’t jump at the chance …
Congratulations to you, too! I know firsthand that you must have worked really hard to get there.
In reference to your “side note” this is not entirely correct. To be a merit badge counselor you must be registered with the BSA. You must have Youth Protection Training. You must follow the scout manual requirements without deletions or additions. That being said I am hoping the your participants designed the robot, documented the design in an engineering notebook, discussed the design with you, built the robot, tested the robot and again documented the results in their engineering notebook.
As a merit badge counselor here in Wisconsin I am not convinced that this is a one day merit badge.
As the proud father of three eagle scouts I believe there are some easy merit badges to attain - as a merit badge counselor this is not one of them. I do have to agree that the VEX program is a great vehicle to attain the badge and I encourage all of our local scouts to participate in the local VEX and FRC programs. As a counselor I monitor their progress and review their notebooks and have issued the merit badge as appropriate.
I, too, agree. However, in order to be come a merit badge counselor (and you’re already involved with BSA), you really only need to want to do it. So long as you are willing to teach, you’re in.
I think completing the Robotics Merit Badge in one day can easily be done. I’m not too sure about combining the Programming MB and the Robotics MB, though. My only concern with the Programming MB is that there are several concepts that new programmers have to understand, and for some (particularly hyped up Boy Scouts), these concepts can be difficult to understand (although they are the most basic skills in programming).