Eagle project ideas using computer tech, computers etc?

[MT's Mom]

Hi All,

I have a scout who is looking for an Eagle project that would involve computers, programming & technology. Any ideas out there?

Thanks!

MT's Mom

[Bill Pitcher]

Check with a local or near-by museum or historical society. I had a boy who helped catalog an atic full of historical artifacts. A tough job to get many boys involved, to lead, however! This young man had to take 35 mm and digital pictures in color AND B/W with catalog numbers visible on a name plate type of object, next to the artifact, take these pics from all sides, fill out a State of NY form (on computer) for each item, fill out an insurance form (on computer) for each item, and compile a list of all the objects he cataloged, on computer.

[pmeikel]

We had a boy that documented all of the software on each computer in the school. They compared that to the number of licenses that they had available to make sure the school was compliant and there wasn't any pirated software.

[AquilaNegra2]

Check with a local or near-by museum or historical society. I had a boy who helped catalog an attic full of historical artifacts. A tough job to get many boys involved, to lead, however!

Exactly. It's been my (albeit limited) experience that most boys looking for this type of project are doing the work themselves rather than leading others. The Eagle Project is *NOT* about getting a project done -- it's about leading OTHERS to do that project.

[alex gregory]

I know a young man that developed a computer lab for a local Boys and Girls Club. It ended up being a lot more fund raising than fun.

[alex gregory]

I also know a Girl Scout who coached an all-girls Lego Robotics team for children of migrant farmers in order to get her Gold Award. That project involved some fund-raising for team travel funds, the computers and robots were donated by the Girl Scout Council, and she worked on the project for over a year. It was a very cool project that involved a lot of different skills (including extensive interpreting), and really made you realize how much more some kids are willing to do for a badge.

[fritz1255]

Hopefully better late than never. I had an idea that we did not actually launch - a cemetery database such as is shown here: http://conwaypubliclibrary.org/index.ph ... meteries-2 This type of database is invaluable for geneaolgical research. I could envision several Eagle projects from this depending on the size of the cemeteries. The Scout would lead other Scouts in collecting and entering the data into the database. What stopped me was that we did not have a Dad who was an IT professional who could have helped us get from data to an online database like the example. Also would have required selling the concept to a municipality or organization rather than working on an idea that the organization presented to us, and thus were already sold on.

The advantage of this type of project is that it does not require fundraising, which is very difficult in this economic climate. It still has all the other leadership and effort aspects.

[agdparker]

Similar to the project Fritz mentioned, my nephew's project involved canvassing a local cemetery, taking pictures at every stone. They also matched the canvas records with the paper records inside and then submitted all of the information to some genealogical websites. IIRC, most of the data ended up in Excel.

[deweylure]

We had a scout do a project for their high school music department. He cleared a room full of sheet music ,organized all copies of the composition into a file, made a computer data base to identify what the school had . This was 50 + years of accumulation.


Dewey

[smtroop168]

I think Bill Gates did his EP by designing scoutnet.

[Billiken]

I think Bill Gates did his EP by designing scoutnet.

LOL

(Not an Eagle Scout, but his dad was IIRC.)

[smtroop168]

He couldn't get District Approval.

[yankeelady]

Our local district Eagle advisor dismiss computerized projects because they don't show leadership.

[smtroop168]

Our local district Eagle advisor dismiss computerized projects because they don't show leadership.

Welcome to the Forum.

I wouldn't dismiss it outright but the EP would have to show leadership obviously. An EP where the scout is building a web page for his sponsor in his basement doesn't fly.