The Badge Archive

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:

• (Optional) Print some examples of older cars (you can use Slideshow on Google Docs from GSNWGL) or have them ready to show on a tablet or laptop.
• Print a list of some car design features.
• Print, design, and assemble one cardboard vehicle for an Example Vehicle.
• Enough for each scout or scout group:
  • Cardboard for car body and wheels
  • Strong scissors to cut cardboard.
  • Tape (scotch and duck)… (or hot glue guns if available).
  • Pen/Pencil/Marker to write on cardboard
  • Bottle cap to trace their wheels with.
  • Two Wooden Skewers (with the pointy end trimmed off)
  • Two Plastic Straws
• Troop coloring supplies (markers, crayons, or colored pencils) for cardboard.
• Extra paper for a racetrack or road map on the floor if there is extra time.

Vehicles in the Past

Info Needed: The Steam Car was invented in 1769 and was not powered by gasoline. The first vehicle powered by gasoline was Benz Patent Motorwagen was invented in 1885. The Ford Model T Car is what most people think of when they think of the first vehicle, but it wasn’t invented until 1908. Ford Thunderbird was made in 1955 and was a much different vehicle. The original Ford Taurus was made in 1990, but if you look at the new version of a Ford Taurus in 2020, they are also two very different cars.

(Requirement 1 Earned)

Design Criteria

Info Needed: 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.

(Requirement 3 Earned)

Customer Feedback

Info Needed: Scouts could learn information about future customers through Surveys and Questionnaires, Direct Conversations, or Online Reviews and Comments.

Question Needed: Show the Example Vehicle you made. If the scouts were to make their own vehicle, thinking of possible customers that use their vehicle, what design criteria should it have?

Note to Leaders – You can learn more about customer feedback with a mini lesson

(Requirement 2 Earned)

Design your Vehicle

Action Needed: Show the Scouts the Example Vehicle of a cardboard vehicle. Have scouts sketch their vehicle on cardboard, and do the reverse image so they have two outlines to cut for the 3D model portion. They need to try and include a sketch of their added design criteria, although some (like interior design features) would be hard to put on the cardboard.

(Requirement 4 Earned)

3D Model It

Action Needed: Scouts cut out the template and assemble their cardboard vehicle

Hint – If you don’t think you will have enough time, pre-cut the wheels and wooden skewer/plastic straw axles for them. Time could be an issue depending on how well the scouts can cut through the cardboard. You can also try a lighter cardboard (like a cereal box) for the body and use the thicker cardboard for the wheels.

(Requirement 5 Earned)

Meeting End

If you have extra time, use extra paper to design a race track or road map on the floor for scouts to run their paper vehicles around on.

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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