We Own Adventure

Scouting News for the DC Metro Area

STEM

Super – Supernova cohort: Pack 104 adds 4 more Supernovas

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Congratulations to Pack 104 Webelos Sam Boyce, Reagan Lester, Ryan Parks, and Julian Price, on earning the Dr. Charles H Townes SuperNova award. After working on some Nova awards earlier in the year, Webelos from Pack 104 reached out to their counselor to start work on the Super Nova Award. In January, the four scouts began their scientific journey meeting both online and via Zoom with their counselor and guest speakers.

Along their journey the boys discussed scientific inquiry with their families, counselor, as well as Coach Micaela Pond, Gifted Services teacher at Key Immersion school in Arlington, Dr. Adela Roa-Varon, of the Smithsonian Natural History Museum, as well as other scouters in scientific fields.

Highlights from their journey included making personal flashlight with a switch out of household materials, experimenting with exploding soda and mints and other household materials, planting and caring for a personal terrarium, geocaching, and personal research into varied scientific subjects.

The culmination of their hard work was presented to the Pack via a Super Science Zoom where their personal experiments were shared via video. Final projects included study the light effect on crystal growth (Ryan), cloud formation and condensation in a controlled environment (Julian), reaction of egg and vinegar/how long to dissolve the shell (Reagan), and studying the factors that affect the function of homemade black powder (Sam). Each experiment left our young scouts with further questions to explore, and made for a wonderful show.

These newest SuperNova recipients bring the Packs total to 5 with Jacob Nadherny now with T167 being the first to complete the award in 2020.

USPTO invites Scouts BSA to learn about Inventing

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This summer, the United States Patent & Trademark Office will host a 2-day virtual event for Scouts BSA to earn the Inventing Merit Badge. This event is organized by the Eastern Regional Outreach Office at the USPTO, and several USPTO employees (now registered Merit Badge Counselors) who are volunteering!

The USPTO’s Inventing Merit Badge program will include two synchronous sessions for youth:

  •  July 17, 2021: the virtual class
  • August 28, 2021: the virtual inventions showcase

Between the two sessions, youth will design and build prototypes of their inventions. They will have the opportunity to consult with USPTO employees and Inventing Merit Badge Counselors via ‘virtual office hours’. Youth will all submit videos of their presentations by August 27, to be included in the virtual inventions showcase!

Agenda for Inventing Merit Badge class 

July 17, 2021

12:30 – 1:00 Opening remarks

1:00 – 1:30 The Impact of Invention & Inventing

1:30 – 2:00 An Introduction to Intellectual Property

2:10 -2:30 Invention Case Study

2:30 – 3:15 Why do you invent: panel discussion

3:15 – 4:15 Break-out sessions, interactive discussion

Registration details:  https://scoutingevent.com/082-inventing

In the past, the USPTO had held an Inventing Merit Badge class on site in Alexandria, VA. Below are some photos from the past events! We can’t wait to see what everyone comes up with this year – join us in this summer’s Inventing Merit Badge series!

 

A Stellar Performance for a Supernova Award Winner

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It is AOL crossover season once again, and this year the National Capital Area Council’s very own Pack 698 in Burke, VA had one Arrow of Light Scout who became the first ever Cub Scout in his Pack to receive the Dr. Charles H. Townes Supernova Award. Lian Flinner is a fifth grader at White Oaks Elementary School and has been in Cub Scouts since he was old enough to join. As a Tiger Scout, he was always interested in building Legos like most children, but his interest grew as the years went on. He started to become curious about electronics, computers, and eventually robotics. As he neared the end of his Cub Scout journey, he decided to put his skills to the test during his final months in Pack 698. He chose to complete the challenging Supernova Award for the Webelos rank with less than a month to spare. While navigating a pandemic that challenged his ability to complete the requirements, he successfully completed his goal, and on May 1, 2021, he was awarded the medal alongside his fellow AOL Cub Scouts, who all received the Down and Dirty Nova Award.

While working together with his mentor, Neal Erickson (Cubmaster for Pack 698), Lian learned about famous scientists including Albert Einstein, Thomas Edison, and Stephen Hawking; performed at-home experiments with his Dad (safely!); and discussed the method of creating a hypothesis and how to apply it to the scientific method in order to complete his main project. Lian’s first experiment involved growing crystals at home formed by two different compounds: magnesium sulfate and aluminum potassium sulfate. He watched them grow in different environments for several weeks and analyzed the growth patterns as well as the shapes they transformed into. He also included sugar as a part of the experiment and was able to make some tasty at-home rock candy!

The main project Lian completed was his “Arduino Car Experiment” for which Lian decided to use his Arduino UNO kit, a microcontroller board designed to take programming enthusiasts to the next level of computer programming and electrical engineering. With the kit, he built and programmed a speed tracker for three of his favorite Hot Wheels cars, which he happily mentions in his final report as being three out of more than one hundred cars that he owns! He measured the weight of each car and then tracked their changes in speed at different angles. Once the experiment was complete, he determined the winning car, analyzed the results, and investigated what could be done differently to make the experiment better the next time. After completing the whole project, Lian thought about how this could be applied to activities like the Pinewood Derby to help measure the speed of every scout’s car and perhaps introduce a new award for the derby that could connect packs across the NCAC: the fastest pinewood derby car based on an actual calculated speed. He looks forward to using his kit and the scientific method in the future to test new projects and perhaps even build his own robot. Speaking of which, he has already been eyeing the robotics merit badge in Boy Scouts.

The Supernova Award was a significant accomplishment for Lian. Along the way to achieving this award, he came across two powerful quotations from an inventor he now admires, Thomas Edison. The first quote is “Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration.” The second is “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” The crux of these two quotes are time and effort, both of which Lian demonstrated good use of to successfully complete the Supernova award. As Lian becomes a supernova of his own, we can only look forward to his next stellar performance. Congratulations, Lian!

 

Pack 1280 Townes Supernova Ceremony

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Pack 1280 Supernova and Arrow of Light Scouts (L.-to-R.): Matthew B., Victor T., Ethan N., Leo P., Landon E., John L., Dr. Jim Boyce (Mentor), Ethan M., Matthew Z. and in the foreground Dr. Stanley Fricke of the NCAC STEM Committee who came in person to present the Charles Townes Supernova Awards.

Submitted by: Jim Boyce, Ph.D.

The National Capital Area Council (NCAC) has just recognized eight Webelos Scouts from Potomac District Pack 1280 for earning the Dr. Charles H. Townes Supernova Award.  These scouts, have been working together within the Webelos Program on the award requirements for 18 months (Summer 2019 to Spring 2021).  Their Mentor, Dr. Jim P. Boyce, who has been serving as a NOVA Mentor and Counselor for almost a decade in the NCAC, says that this was his largest group of scouts to earn this award yet.

Each scout developed their own science or engineering project to fulfill one of the nine requirements of this award and then presented their projects throughout the hypothesis, testing and results stages to each other and their Mentor.

All the scouts participated regularly in NCAC STEM programs including the 2020 Labor Day weekend STEM-a-Thon, the 2020-2021 STEM at Home speaker series and the 2020 William D. Boyce Potomac District Scout Chess Tournament.  Scouts met with scientists and engineers from NASA, NIH and Astra Zeneca to learn about careers and also shared their STEM projects at local school and independent Regional Science Fairs. One scout entered their Townes project in the 2020 Rockville Regional Science fair and earned 1st place for age and 2nd place overall.  Collectively this Cadre of scouts has previously earned 28 NOVA Awards from 2016 to 2021 with several different Counselors and one previously earned the Louise Alvarez Supernova Award in a Cadre in 2017.

The projects were exceptional in their creativity and spanned the fields of chemistry, environmental biology, microbiology, and physics.  For example, Webelos Matthew B. used local soil bacteria that he aerosol- sprayed over agar Petri dishes and that were protected with different types of face masks to quantitate the effect of mask material on prevention of transmission of germs.  Webelos Matthew Z. demonstrated the principal of radioactive decay. Webelos John L. and Leo P. studied different properties of liquids under different conditions. Webelos Ethan M. studied the ability of soil microorganisms to decompose different types of materials. Webelos Ethan N. studied solar energy and the effect of different wavelengths and intensities of light at charging a battery connected to a solar panel. Webelos Landon E. made a study out of measuring the elasticity of polymers made from different combinations of monomers. And Webelos Victor T. studied the Ideal Gas Law by taking balloons with him on an elevation gain hike in the Rocky Mountains to measure their volume under different atmospheric conditions.

The ceremony was conducted April 17, 2021 at a masked, small group, outdoor campfire ceremony at Locust Grove Nature Center in Bethesda MD.  All of these scouts also earned their Arrow of Light Rank at about the same time as finishing their Supernova requirements and are continuing together in their journey in scouting by crossing into Scouts BSA, after two more planned campouts together this Spring as Webelos.

Astronaut, NASA, Out of this World, Nova

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Brian Hoffer is a Den Leader of Pack 129 in NCAC as well as a graduate of the United States Naval Academy. In other words, he went to the same academy as Astronaut Charlie Duke! How cool is that?! Even cooler, Brian reached out to NCAC in February to suggest that we invite Astronaut Duke to STEM Speaker Series. We did, Astronaut Duke agreed to participate, and on March 18th STEM Speaker Series hosted a great chat with Astronaut Duke and a few thousand scouts.

In case you’re wondering, astronauts have a strong connection to scouting. In fact, all but one astronaut to walk on the moon were in BSA at some rank or another (ranging from Cub Scout, to Tenderfoot… to Eagle Scout). Only two of those astronauts earned the rank of Eagle and they are Astronaut Charlie Duke and Astronaut Neil Armstrong.

STEM Speaker Series

Needless to say, we were delighted to host Astronaut Duke in STEM Speaker Series. This webinar series was designed by the NCAC STEM Committee in spring 2020 as a way to encourage youth to learn about STEM careers during the pandemic. We invite STEM professionals to present about their career and education, and to then answer questions live from the youth.

This special edition featuring Astronaut Duke was even broadcast across National BSA’s channels! You can rewatch the talk here, and check out the NCAC STEM Facebook page for future STEM Speaker Series.

 

Brian Hoffer’s Den from Pack 129 tuned in for the chat, and even submit a few questions for Astronaut Duke! This wasn’t their first interaction with the incredible world of space exploration. These cubs earned a Nova Award, “Out of this World” during the past year.

Nova Awards

Each Nova Award generally follows a format that encourages a myriad of activities: read/watch an hour on the topic, do some hands-on activities in the subject area, visit a museum/laboratory, talk to an expert, discuss what you learned.

The requirements of the Out of this World Nova Award included a field trip. Thus, for requirement 4A, Brian had organized a field trip for his den to visit the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, MD.  They were lucky to have visited pre-pandemic, but NASA offers some interactive virtual tours even now.

For another requirement, one of the webelos created this vibrant digital  art of a Mars base.

Congratulations to the following Webelos in Pack 129, in National Capital Area Council, for earning the Out of this World Nova Award:

Ben
Bastian
Xavi
Murphy
Sam
Max

Here’s the photo of them at the NASA Goddard Space Center eating Astronaut Ice Cream. All in all, what a cool way to learn about space, and have a capstone event!

Cryptology and Codes in STEM@Home

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On February 6, NCAC kicked off the first STEM@Home of 2021! STEM@Home is a online Nova program that enables Cub Scouts to learn Novas from the comforts of their homes! To start off the year we had two cub scout Nova classes:

Nova 1-2-3 Go!

Cub scouts had the tremendous opportunity to learn about secret codes with the NSA National Cryptologic Museum. Ms. Jen Wilcox and cameraman Mr. Craig taught live from the museum, demonstrating the NSA cipher, Navajo Joe, and railroad codes. The NSA National Cryptologic Museum in Annapolis Junction in MD has taught the 1-2-3 Go Nova on-site pre-pandemic.  Thankfully NCAC Nova Counselor Ms. Plano-Faber made the connection to Ms. Wilcox who practiced and tweaked the museum’s program for our STEM@Home virtual format, and together they guided cubs through a fantastic worksheet deciphering codes! (Have you ever heard of a rail fence cipher? ) We can’t wait to visit once the museum reopens!

In another section, the Senior Director of Innovation Research & Development from Intelligent Waves LLC, Mr. John Hammes taught cub scouts about the history of secret codes. Mr. Hammes was a cub scout as a youth and volunteered to give back as a SME (subject matter expert) guiding these cubs through the emergences and industry uses of codes.

NCAC Nova Counselor Dr. Jason Kralj then met with the combined cub scout group to teach the other elements of the 1-2-3 Go Nova Award: statistics! Cub scouts had submit survey questions in advance, which we ran as a poll in ZOOM so everyone could collect data from their peers to meet requirement 2 of the Nova. They then learned how to display the results before moving into the fun coin toss experiment!

 

Cub Scouts Can Code

In another class, cub scouts learned to code with NCAC Nova Counselor Mr. Mark Bruno. This is the second time Mr. Bruno taught this class in STEM@Home and the screenshot is from a step-coding game that he created and facilitated for the whole group! As you might imagine, this Nova Award covers a different type of codes than those in 1-2-3 Go. These cub scouts walked away with a better understanding of binary codes and algorithms; and those who completed the post-requisites even earned their full Nova Award!

Thank you to our guests, Mr. Hammes, Ms. Wilcox and Cameraman Craig as well as our very own NCAC Nova Counselors Dr. Kralj, Ms. Plano-Faber and Mr. Bruno for putting on this excellent event! 


The next STEM@Home will be on April 17, 2021. This event will include Novas for Cub Scouts as well as Scouts BSA — be sure to check it out! https://scoutingevent.com/082-stemnova