Today a copy of Scouting (magazine) came in & as I was flipping thought I pick up on this article titled “Mother of Inventing” in the What’s New area. (article not online yet)
It tells the story of how there use to be an Inventing MB – that 10 scouts earned before it went away.
Inventing MB is back and this time the Scouts don’t have to “apply for and receive a U.S. patent on an invention.”
Looking though the requirements, there is some basic knowledge, but what interests me are things like:
- Choose a commercially available product that you have used on an overnight camping trip with your troop. Make recommendations for improving the product, and make a sketch that shows your recommendations.
- Build a working prototype of the item you invented for requirement 6*. Test and evaluate the invention – [including] cost, usefulness, marketability, appearance, and function. Describe how your original vision and expectations for your invention are similar or dissimilar to the prototype you built.
- Participate with a club or team (robotics team, science club, or engineering club) that builds a useful item.
I am thrilled that the Boy Scouts of America is working towards helping those involved in scouting to go though the process of solving problems in the world around them.
About jon
My son is a Boy Scout and I am an adult leader; I will be the merit badge counselor for the inventing merit badge. I also run my own company which is a product development company; I personally hold six US patents so this merit badge has really caught my interest. I am trying to gather as much information on the history of the badge as possible; I know it was discontinued around 1915 and re-established in 2010. I would love to know the names of the ten boys that originally earned this badge; with their names I can do a patent search and obtain a copy of the patent that was issued to each boy. This would be a great piece of history to be able to share so any help would be upmost appreciated.
Thank You,
Greg Westra
Greg, That sounds great, but I am not sure I’ll be tons of help for you. I grew up heavily involved in multiple scout programs, but have not been very active in a few years. I’ll email you a couple ideas of who to contact for that information.
I’d also love to hear about what the scouts you help end up doing.