Holy Shit the Boy Scouts of America Fucked Up and Did Something Right
Despite being an organization whose leadership is composed of complete and utter assholes, the Boys Scouts of America has actually done something right for the first time in like 40 years.
They are now offering a merit badge in robotics!
According to BSA literature, to earn the badge scouts must design, build, program, and test a robot; demonstrate the bot and share their engineering notes; attend a robotics competition or do research on robotics contests; and explain how robots are used today.
The robotics merit badge is part of the Boy Scouts new STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) curriculum, which is clearly an attempt by a proudly ass-backwards organization to teach boys something other than bigotry and homophobia.
Good luck with that!
My grandfather was a bigwig in the New York City Boy Scouts back in the day, and several members of my family were scouts when they were kids.
That being said, if I had a son he would NEVER be allowed to join that awful organization.
Maybe this is a sign that, whether they like it or not, scouting has to be brought kicking and screaming into the 21st Century.
Here’s hoping.
As a former Boy Scout I can say the national administration has little to no influence at the community, or troop, level. We had boys from all walks of life and always went out of our way too accommodate them. We were often taught lessons that went against the bigotry being adopted at the top level.
So please be aware of this if you ever have an opportunity to interact with them in the future.
With regards to the merit badge, I wonder if they are also selling kits now to go along with it? That’s a bit more complicated than a pinewood derby car.