Boy Scout National Jamboree - Part 3

This is the third post on my week at the 2013 Boy Scout National Jamboree.  If you want to see my previous post, just click here.

When we left Part 2, I had shown you parts of Summit Center, including the zip lines and the stadium.  I would like to focus a little more on my small contribution to the National Jamboree, in this post.

As I mentioned before, I was asked by the national Boy Scout office to come and help teach one of the newest merit badges for 2013 - Game Design.  This isn't just about video games, but includes all types of games - board, dice, cards, etc.  The idea is to help them understand what actually goes into the games that they play everyday.

At the Jamboree, we were given a good-size tent to work inside.  There were three other merit badges making their debut at the Jamboree (Sustainability, Programming and Mining in Society):

Inside the tent, we had one-half equipped with a variety of board games.  This was to get the Scouts started...they had to play four games and try to understand the objective, rules, etc.  We had Uno, Jenga, Connect 4, Checkers, etc.  The ideas was to choose games that could be played quickly.

One of the individuals that helped to create the badge is the president of Mayfair Games.  They are big in the board games world and publish one of the more popular titles: Settlers of Catan. They were kind enough to loan us several versions of the game to use for our exhibit.

As I said, we only had three people working this merit badge.  These are my colleagues and they were amazing.  I learned a few things about jamborees and the culture of adult scouting from these dedicated men.

The other half of our area was dedicated to a "discussion" area.  Here, we held classes every half hour, on topics that would complete more badge requirements.  The seats would usually fill quickly and we had to improvise when the group became too large.  One of the requirements asks the Scouts to talk with someone in the game industry about careers and education to work in gaming.  My colleague and I took turns leading this discussion:

The Scouts were really excited to talk to someone that actually worked in video games, so I felt pretty special.  I loved giving them a chance to ask questions about what it's like to actually create a video game.  I tried to get them to understand what kind of people we hire and that their success in school - right now - would open further doors to them, going forward.

There were several other merit badge tens in our area.  Just outside our door was Programming, Chess, Stamp Collecting, Railroading and Leatherwork.  Something for everyone ; )

During the week, it rained quite often.  While the clouds and rain were a welcome relief to the heat, it kept the humidity quite high.  Here's just a taste.  I took this video inside one of the food tents.  We had downpours like this several times.

The worst problem that we had to deal with was the mud created by the buckets of rain that would fall.  At the beginning of the week, things inside our tent were not good:

After a couple of days in this, we arranged to have bales of hay delivered.  This was a temporary relief, as the continued rain would create more problems and the hay just become muddied.

We made the best of the situation.  Outside of the tent, we put together a giant Jenga set with 2x4 blocks.  The Scouts loved playing this.  We finally put some plastic down and they continued playing with muddy "blocks":

Away from the Summit Center, there were TONS of things for Scouts to see and do.  Here are just a few:

In the "Chemistry" area, the young men made "slime"

In the "Indian Lore" area, they learned about Native Americans

The Scouts in the welding and mechanical areas actually helped assemble the shell of this NASCAR race car.  It's actually going to be used in a race within the next month...

Airsoft rifles and pistol shooting

Archery

Technology Summit, where they played with Microsoft hardware & software

The Welding merit badge was pretty cool.  They had seven different stations set-up to help the Scouts learn to weld.

One area that I really, really wish I had time to attend, was the Dutch Oven cooking demonstrations.  They had six or seven ovens all going at the same time.  I really want to learn more about this...and taste some of the amazing recipes they were probably demonstrating:

As you can imagine, there were plenty of opportunities to purchase Jamboree memorabilia.  Hats, shirts, tents, patches, coats, blankets...the list goes on.  They also had a good selection of merit badge books and regular Scouting accessories. I found these items:

Now, I don't know about you...but these kind of look like "shot glasses" to me.  But then again, I'm not an avid "toothpick holder" collector ; )

The other activity that I saw hundreds and hundreds of Scouts involved in...was trading patches.  Growing up, this wasn't a big deal in my neck of the woods.  I've come to learn that this is a big part of any Scout gathering.  I was amazed to watch this activity spring up everywhere...

Kids and adults both would just set down a blanket or tarp and put their collection out for trading.  Rain or shine, this happened all over the place:



Where there's a will, there's a way...

That's it for this post.  In my next - and last - post, I'll share some of the amazing spiritual experiences that I was lucky enough to have at the Jamboree.