Unlike the Boy Scouts of America's game design badge that was announced last month, the Girl Scout game design patch is only available for the Girl Scouts of the Los Angeles area. Patches are earned regionally, which badges are nationally recognized by the organization and are available to any scout.
The requirements to earn Girl Scouts' patch is also more rigorous. In addition planning the plot, characters and game type like the Boy Scouts' badge, the girls are also required to begin basic development of the game. They will use the program Gamestar Mechanic, which teaches children about game design.
Though this specific patch is not available nationwide, an entertainment technology badge that encourages game development is available for all Girl Scout juniors, or girls from the 4th - 5th grade. This badge encourages Girl Scouts to "discover the sound waves in a ringtone, the light magic that makes movies, and the topsy-turvy physics of roller coasters," the Girl Scouts website describes. To earn this badge they can work on animation, basic game design or among other options.
Once the patch is successful in the Los Angeles area, Sheri Ruben, a member of WIGI's steering committee and president and CEO of Design, Direct, Deliver told NBC News that she'd like to see this program expand nationally to areas where game developers are prevalent.
Both badges look so cool! The heart looks like it was from Zelda and the other badge look like a "no" pixel from Tron. This is so cool that the Girl scouts are doing this. We need to get more girls into gaming. Hopefully they will provide some good role model to the girl scouts.
ReplyDeleteRight? If only they had these sorts of badges and patches when I was young. I think this'll definitely get a few more girls into the community. The Girl Scouts of Greater Los Angeles are pretty cool - they even have robotics badges and teams. I like the direction they are going.
Delete