Quote:
Originally Posted by gblake
By "National" do you mean FIRST HQ? If so, that is no surprise.
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Actually I believe he is refering to BSA's National office.
Robotics is not the only new merit badge with a STEM focus, and I have heard through back channels that there is increasing emphasis on STEM from them. I know of one troop with leadership involved in developing these MBs which was asked to "not do Advancement" for a year so they could spend time on these other programs. They politely declined.
I am a Merit Badge counselor for Robotics and I would encourage Scouts with a connection to an FRC team to use their work on the team towards the MB. I have already counceled a couple of boys who are doing the same with their FLL teams and am setting up a MB event for a troop in our district. We will be using Lego because I have NXTs available and it is familiar to the kids. Recently we had a MB day for Robotics in a nearby district that used VEX, because several kits were available.
The requirements are carefully designed to be platform independent, use what you have available.