The more and more I sit around and listen about what's going on at the National Jamboree this year the more I wish I had gone. I thought the Shining Light Across America did it for me in Fort Wayne last night, but this put the decorations on the icing of the cake.
I am an eagle scout and 2 year Assistant Scoutmaster for Troop 130, Huntington, IN, Anthony Wayne Area Council. This has been something I've wanted happen for a while.
I did some quick research, found nothing from the National Jamboree page or scouting.org. I also looked at Meritbadge.com and found that it is not in their system yet.
BUT I did find in Wikipedia their meritbadge section does include it with the release date as 2010. Nothing official there.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merit_b..._of_America%29
Further research I did find a brief mentioning of the Robotics Meritbadge on the Jamboree website (correction of earlier not finding anything). It is mentioned under the "Teaching Technology" in the second paragraph mentioning that the merit badge is "on the horizon."
http://www.bsajamboree.org/Bulletins.../Release5.aspx
And to top it all off in the BSA Magazine website there is an article from just yesterday about the Robotics Meritbadge and an image with it. It states that "The badge won't be available to earn until April..." and sadly never mentioned FIRST (but does show VEX robots).
http://blog.scoutingmagazine.org/201...rit-badge.html
All in all, I'm pretty excited for this. It's pretty evident from the enthusiasm of many here on CD and at the Jamboree that this may be a popular merit badge and will go through.