[HN Gopher] "Computers", BSA Merit Badge Series (1973) ___________________________________________________________________ "Computers", BSA Merit Badge Series (1973) Author : dalke Score : 21 points Date : 2022-05-12 08:20 UTC (1 days ago) (HTM) web link (archive.org) (TXT) w3m dump (archive.org) | WalterBright wrote: | It's in my 1969 BSA merit badge book, too. | | I don't know why I never got it, though my first access to a | computer was in 1975. At one point I decided to get every merit | badge, but lost interest before finishing. | | In the early 1970s, the BSA underwent a major dumbing down, which | contributed to my losing interest. For example, the WeBeLoS rank | in Cub Scouts stood for "Wolf Bear Lion Scout". To a boy, that | was pretty cool! But by the time I achieved Bear, they changed it | to mean "We Will Be Loyal Scouts". Ugh. That just let all the air | out of the balloon. What boy wants that rank? | | The uniforms were changed from cotton that worked great outdoors, | to cheap, itchy polyester. Perhaps coincidentally, the scouts | stopped wearing the uniforms. | | They revamped the Boy Scout manual, too, in a miserable way. I | kept my old one. I had the 1969 Merit badge book because, you | guessed it, they messed up the merit badges, too, to be more like | Sesame Street. | | It just wasn't for me anymore. Grumble, grumble. | bg4 wrote: | I'm an Eagle Scout who grew up in the 80s. 'We'll be loyal | scouts' was my jam baby. | WalterBright wrote: | I'm sure there were still plenty of boys for whom it worked. | The BSA that I liked, however, had passed into history, much | like how chemistry sets were emasculated at about the same | time. | WalterBright wrote: | One think I thank the BSA for is when I moved to Arizona, I | thought it was one ugly lifeless brown desert. One of the | merit badges required me to identify many types of flora | and fauna to a leader while hiking in the desert. | | It really opened my eyes to the beauty of the Arizona | desert, which I grew to love very much. | | The swimming and lifesaving merit badges also made me | confident in the water, which I thank the BSA for giving me | the impetus to do. | | And, of course, the knots have served me well, and I can | make fire with one match. I wish the Scouts had taught a | lot more woodcraft. They didn't even teach building an | emergency shelter. | bg4 wrote: | You're not wrong sadly - I've commented very much the same | thing for the experience I had in the 80s compared to | today. | Shared404 wrote: | I had a similar experience over the course of the 2000s - | 2010s. | | Though my issue was as much with the increasing top | heaviness of the funding as anything else. | ben_w wrote: | I find it surprising and fascinating that OCR was already a thing | by this point. | | What is/was easy and what is/was hard isn't at all obvious, not | even in retrospect. | convolvatron wrote: | it was pretty marginally useful for the longest time, night and | day with todays | cowmix wrote: | I was in a computers themed "Explorer Scout" program in the | mid-80s (it had some affiliation to the BSA but I'm not sure how) | when I was going to high school. One of the benefits of that | program was getting your own account on Honeywell's Multics | timeshare system. | mayoff wrote: | I was in an Explorer Post that met at Convex Computer | Corporation in Dallas, TX in 1986. It was my first exposure to | Unix and C programming. A few of us got dial-up access to a | Convex C-1 "minisupercomputer". Then I got in trouble for | dialing in just to play Hack. (This was before it became | Nethack.) | version_five wrote: | I was in cub scouts (this was in Canada, it's for ages 7-10 or | so, I don't know how it maps to BSA scouts, it's part of the same | Baden Powell originated organization). | | I did a similar badge in this org which I think was a little more | basic, in the 80s. I haven't really thought about it since then, | but we had to do some definitions, I think write instructions for | some task as in this one, and what strikes me most now is we had | some (simple) boolean logic exercises, or had to make examples, I | think explained as switches, explaining AND, OR (I dont remember | if others were there) as series and parallel and determining | whether a light was on. | | Sounds basic, but having taught intro to programming and intro to | circuits many years later, still confusing for many | Alupis wrote: | Cub Scouts is the under-12 youth organization that "feeds" into | Boy Scouts. | | Many, but not all, Boy Scouts started off as Cub Scouts, rising | up through the ranks to earn their Webelos before "graduating" | into Boy Scouts around age 12. | | Cub Scouts organize into "Packs" (analogous to a Troop in Boy | Scouts), and break off into "Dens" (analogous to Patrols in Boy | Scouts). | | Scouting is an amazing youth experience, both in Cub Scouts and | Boy Scouts. Unfortunately not all Packs and Troops are created | equal, although some "specialize" in certain activities (such | as canoeing/kayaking, backpacking, etc). Finding a good Pack or | Troop that fits your interests is key. | WalterBright wrote: | I joined the Boy Scouts at 10 mainly because the Cub Scouts | abandoned Wolf Bear Lion Scout as WeBeLoS. | Alupis wrote: | That's a real shame. In my day, earning your Webelos was | quite a life achievement and meant a great deal, for being | so young. It was not quite the same magnitude of importance | as earning your Eagle, or being inducted into the Order of | the Arrow, but it was significant. | jdeibele wrote: | My son is in Scouts. He was a Wolf, then Bear, then | Webelos. He achieved the Arrow of Light as a Cub Scout. | https://www.boyscouttrail.com/webelos/arrow-of-light.php | Is that the same as what the Webelos used to be? | | BSA brought back Lions a few years ago for 1st Graders. | I'm not sure what the uptake has been. | WalterBright wrote: | The ranks were Wolf, Bear, Lion, then WeBeLos, and then | Arrow of Light. | willswire wrote: | As an Eagle Scout, one of the things I'm most grateful for is the | merit badge program. You really get a wide exposure to tons of | different areas - most of which come with a pamphlet similar to | this one. | | The real value proposition of the BSA is to better serve your | community and those around you by becoming well-rounded, and | having contextual experience of teamwork dynamics. | dalke wrote: | Following up on yesterday's "Master's at Arms" badge | (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31344293 ), I thought | people might be interested in what the requirements were for the | "Computers" badge for the Boy Scouts of America, nearly 50 years | ago. | | Here are the requirements, from | https://archive.org/details/BoyScoutsComputers/page/n5/mode/... : | | 1. Do the following: | | a. Give a short history of computers. Describe the major parts of | a computer system. Give four different uses of computers. | | b. Describe the differences between analog and digital computers. | Tell the use of each. | | c. Explain some differences between special- and general-purpose | machines. | | 2. Do the following: | | a. Tell what a program is and how it is developed. | | b. Explain the difference between an assembler and a compiler. | Tell where each might he used. Describe a source and an object | program. | | c. Use a flowchart diagram to show the steps needed to set up a | camp. | | 3. Do one of the following: | | a. Prepare flowcharts to find out the average attendance and dues | paid at the last five troop meetings. | | b. Prepare flowcharts to work out a simple arithmetic problem. | Explain to your counselor how this program could be stored in a | computer. Tell how it could be used again. | | 4. Do the following: | | a. Name four input/ output devices for computers. Explain the use | of two of them in a system. | | b. Explain the Hollerith code. Show how your name and address | would be punched on a card. | | 5. Tell the meaning of six of the following: a. memory b. bits c. | on-line d. bytes e. microsecond f. address g. channel h. | interrupt i. register j. console k. central processing unit | | 6. Tell the meaning and use of 12 of the following: a. business | data processing b. information retrieval c. simulation d. | scientific processing e. floating point f. truncation g. fixed | point h. accuracy i. input j. record k. output l. file m. | software n. instruction o. hardware p. indexing q. loop r. | subroutine s. real time t. time sharing u. cybernetics | | 7. Visit a computer installation. Study how it works. | | 8. Do the following: | | a. Explain what each of the following does: design engineer, | analyst, customer engineer, operator, programmer, salesman | | b. Read two pieces of information about computers. Describe what | you read. | | c. Describe jobs in the computer field. | dylan604 wrote: | I think this would give one a much more rounded knowledge base | than your typical coding boot camp graduate receives. | Shared404 wrote: | Old Scouting manuals are a gold mine for basics on a very | wide variety of knowledge. Much of it is outdated, but I | still quite enjoy reading through a replica copy of the | original BSA handbook. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-05-13 23:00 UTC)