September Merit Badge Roundup

The September merit badge roundup, programming, will be taught by the 12th ward. It will start at 8am, Saturday September 26th, at the Mahogany building. Dennis Muhlestein provided the following preparations for the class. 

I recommend reviewing them beforehand to know what we'll be going over. Here are the up to date requirements: http://meritbadge.org/wiki/index.php/Programming

To be done beforehand at home:

Requirement 1: Earn a CyberChip card. There are lots of online resources. 

• http://www.netsmartz.org/scouting, and click the Grade 6-8 Tab. 
• http://www.scoutstuff.org/cert-pkt-bs-cyber-chip.html
• Or you can print this one and fill it out.
  
   
• It is important that your scout leader sign the card. 

Requirement 4: Intellectual Property. Do some research about software patents, the difference between owning and licensing software, and differences between freeware, open source, and commercial software. We'll take some time at the roundup to teach each other about what we learned and re-enforce the concepts. 

Requirement 6: Careers. Find out about three career opportunities in programming. Pick one and find out the education, training, and experience required. Discuss this with your counselor and explain why this career might be of interest to you. 

What to bring:
A computer or tablet and be capable of setting up it's WIFI to get on the Church's network. (Last time I did this we had one or two boys that brought laptops but they didn't have admin privileges to change the network settings so they couldn't join the Churches network and get on the Internet.)  A Laptop is going to be the best option if they have one they can bring.  A tablet will work but will be more difficult to type/program on.  If you have an external keyboard for a tablet you won't regret bringing it.  A phone or iPod is probably not going to work very well if at all. 

All programming will be browser based.