Basic Meeting Plans are designed to have minimal supplies and still hit the GSUSA Requirements. Most meetings can be done in a 90 minute time frame.
Items needed:
- Half a Paper Towel Roll for each scout or scout group.
- Scissors for each scout or scout group.
- Wheels and an axle for each scout or scout group. (You can either purchase them or learn how to make your own.) You may need straws to run the axles through.
- Paper for each scout
- Pen/Pencil for each scout
- Make an Example Vehicle before the meeting to make sure the design works and you can instruct the scouts on how to make them successfully.
(Note, troops with a larger budget might want to follow the Simple Toy Car or Cardboard Toy Car instructions instead of the Paper Towel Roll vehicles in this basic plan.)
Design the Vehicle
Info Needed: If they did not already do the Daisy Automotive Design badge, review the same info: “The basic parts of a vehicle are: the body, windows, doors, headlights, wheels, and bumpers. (Optional, use the Parts of a Car worksheet). Show the list of car design features and see which ones the scouts recognize. Explain any they do not. Features make the car more useful. Criteria means critical. Design criteria means it is a design feature the vehicle needs to have.”
Question Needed: For a car to move, what parts does it need? (Answer should be the body and wheels.)
(Requirement 1 Earned)
Build a Moving Vehicle
Action Needed: Scouts must make and test a vehicle that can roll around.
- Break into groups or have each scout do a car individually, depending on the size of your troop and the time you have to test all vehicles.
- Use the Paper Towel Roll halves as the base. (Optional, you can cut an opening on the top in the middle for an egg or figuring to sit in.)
- Cut slits for the axle to go through in the front and back for the wheels.
- Slide the axle in and attach the wheels.
- Test to make sure the basic vehicle will roll or if the axle slots need to be opened more to allow the axles to turn properly. (Note, some may find putting short straws through axle slots and then putting the axles in the straws will give a smoother and more reliable turning of the wheels.)
- Once the vehicle is running smoothly, test it multiple times to make sure can work. Leaders can use the meeting space to be creative in different test runs they can do, or make their own using paper on the floor – ringed race courses, or curvy roads, or a city/town they need to navigate through.
(Requirements 2 & 3 Earned)
Note to Leaders – You can read a more detailed instruction of vehicle assembly.
Meeting End
Scouts can keep testing their vehicles until it is time to go home.
General Notes
Note to Leaders – No Basic Plan compiled by The Badge Archive will earn multiple badges in one level. Part of being budget friendly is not costing more than the price of one official GSUSA badge per meeting.
Some badges will take two meetings to finish. This helps scouts enjoy activities and keeps the troop budget in mind by only needing one GSUSA badge for every two meetings. Troops may choose to get a fun patch for one of the meetings if scouts want a badge/patch for every meeting. Scouts can earn the fun patch if they only attend one meeting and get a fun patch and the official badge if they go to both.
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For More Fun Ideas and Plans
for Daisy, Brownie, and Junior Scouts
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