SCOUTING AMERICA PRESENTS
A MERIT BADGE PRODUCTION
Everything on every screen you own is secretly just two numbers. Today you learn to see the 1s and 0s behind the universe — and drive them yourself.
- PRESS → TO START -
The digital safety video (with a parent)
Tech history + invent the future
Digitization, compression, devices, networks
CPUs, apps, malware defense
Packets, search quests, HTTPS
Projects — pick 3 of 8, back them up
Copyright, patents, trademarks, secrets
Recycle tech the right way — pick 2
Jobs in tech — pick 1 mission
COUNSELOR NOTE — Maps to current official requirements. Req 1's video needs parent/guardian permission — same video as the Photography badge, so double-badgers are already done.
First general-purpose electronic computer: 27 TONS, a whole room, less power than a musical birthday card.
Programmed by physically rewiring it — mostly by a team of six women who invented programming as they went.
Apple II, Commodore, Atari — computers become furniture. Kids start coding in bedrooms.
Storage of choice: cassette tapes. Loading a game could take 10 minutes and one prayer.
Tim Berners-Lee invents the World Wide Web and gives it away for free. Every website since says thanks.
The first webpage explained... how to make webpages. The internet has always been like this.
The iPhone fuses phone + computer + camera + internet into one slab. Ten years later, half of humanity carries one.
Your phone has ~100,000× the memory of the computer that landed Apollo 11 on the Moon.
Chat AIs reach hundreds of millions of users. Software starts writing software. (An AI built this slide. It's very self-aware about it.)
This deck = digital technology explaining digital technology, digitally. Recursion!
Req 2 part two: describe a device that DOESN'T exist yet. What would a 2040 Scout carry?
Holographic map? Translator earring? Implant you argue with? Sketch it for your counselor — weirder is better.
DECIMAL: 0
CHARACTER: —
Eight switches. Each is ON (1) or OFF (0). That's a byte — and it can spell any number 0–255, which can stand for a letter, a color level, a sound sample, a pixel.
Digitize = measure the real world and store it as numbers. That's the entire trick. Everything else is volume.
QUALITY: 100% · FILE SIZE: BIG
Shrinks the file, keeps EVERY bit. Unzip and it's identical. Like folding a shirt — smaller, but still the whole shirt.
Shrinks the file by THROWING AWAY details you probably won't notice... until you compress too hard and the campsite becomes soup ← (see slider).
WHY IT MATTERS — Every meme reposted gets re-JPEG'd and crustier. Now you know why. Lossless for keepsakes; lossy for sharing.
Big screen, real keyboard, most power. Best for MAKING things: code, video edits, essays, this deck.
A computer that fits in your pocket and never leaves you. Sensors everywhere: camera, GPS, gyroscope. Best for capturing + communicating.
A computer with one job: graphics, fast. Specialized chips (GPUs) render millions of pixels 60+ times a second. Best at play.
The devices in ONE place, talking: your house's Wi-Fi, the school lab. Your router is the neighborhood.
Networks of networks across cities and oceans. The biggest WAN ever built has a name: the internet.
PROGRAM VS PROGRAMMING — A program is a recipe of instructions; programming is writing the recipe. The CPU is the cook: it reads one instruction at a time, billions per second, and never improvises.
Software = instructions stored as (you guessed it) numbers. The CPU fetches each instruction, executes it, grabs the next — billions per second. Stack enough simple steps and you get Minecraft.
Your shield spells for req 4c: strong unique passwords + a password manager · updates installed promptly (they're armor patches) · antivirus on · back up your files · and the strongest one — pause before you click.
Every photo you send gets chopped into thousands of packets — each with an address label. They race across different routes (fiber, Wi-Fi, undersea cables), maybe arrive out of order, and reassemble on the other side. In milliseconds.
Encrypted — anyone tapping the wire sees scrambled noise, not your passwords.
Certified — a certificate authority vouches "this really is your bank, not a costume." That's what the padlock checks.
Not promised — that the site is GOOD. Scam sites can have padlocks too. HTTPS = private conversation, not trustworthy conversation partner.
SAVE YOUR GAME — The requirement includes BACKING UP your projects (cloud + second copy) and sharing them with your counselor. A file that exists in one place is one spilled Gatorade from not existing.
The cheat sheet: copyright = creative works · patent = inventions · trademark = names & logos · trade secret = valuable hidden know-how. When IS copying software legal? Free/open-source licenses, your own backups, and public domain — when the license says so, and only then.
Electronics hide lead, mercury, and cadmium (toxic in landfills) AND gold, copper, and rare metals (valuable if recovered). One ton of old phones holds more gold than a ton of gold ore. Your junk drawer is a tiny mine.
WIPE IT. Sign out of accounts, run a factory reset, remove SIM/SD cards. A donated phone with your photos and passwords still on it is a treasure chest with the key in the lock.
Bonus Scout points: many troops run e-waste collection drives as service projects. Two birds, one requirement.
Builds the apps. High demand everywhere on Earth.
Defends against the malware bosses from World 2-2. Good guys, hacker skills.
Finds patterns in oceans of 1s and 0s.
Code + art + physics + fun. Speedrunning taught you the QA mindset already.
Keeps the packets flowing — the internet's pit crew.
Trains the newest tools in tech (some now write slide decks).
Video, design, music — tech skills, creative output.
Pick ONE: profile a digital-tech career (training, school subjects that help) — or visit a business and count the digital tech keeping it alive.
You started as a user. You're leaving as someone who knows what's under the glass: the bits, the packets, the software, the law, and the off-ramp for dead batteries. Next playthrough, you're not just playing the technology — you're building it.
FINAL SCORE: KNOWLEDGE
ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED: DIGITAL CITIZEN
INSERT BADGE TO CONTINUE