Electronic Merit Badges

Digital Technology is about the history of electronics. It tells what they are used for and you learn about different types of digital technology from electricity to virtual reality (VR) googles. It talks about all digital technology and does not focus on one type like programming, animation, or game design. It is about how to use electronics safely and properly.

The Digital Technology merit badge has talks about the history of electronics. For the merit badge, you need to learn about three jobs. You also need to complete three projects like making a webpage. You also learn about how to use websites and what are safe websites.

Animation isn't always about using electronics. Animation is mostly about using a bunch of picture put together to make a video. The pictures can be made through stop motion or it can be just pictures like a cartoon. If you make animation through a cartoon, most people draw with electronics. If you want to make animation not using electronics, it has to be a slide show or can be done through making a book and flipping pages.

Animation merit badge teaches you about different ways to do animation. This merit badge is important if you want to learn how to make electronic games. The movement you see in a game is the result of animation.

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Game Design is about making games. The games can be electronic or non-electronic. If the game is electronic, you need to code the game to make it.

It can have complex animations, simple animations, or little animations. Some games you only play one time and when you complete it you don't play it again. Other games are designed to play over and over again. Game Design is about making images move when a player wants it to move, and about making effects for the certain movements.

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The Programming merit badge is about learning how to use computer code and the history of coding. Coding started by someone developing binary. Binary is the first coding language and it is made up of ones and zeros. The lighter green numbers in the merit badge actually means something in ASCII. Can you figure it out without searching it up?

You have to learn three coding languages from three different industries and show that you can code with them. Some of the coding languages you learn are Python, Java, and C++. One of the things that you do in this merit badge is to recode programs. You take a working code and change the code to make it work better. The Boy's Life magazine has information on how to code in certain languages. Click here to see the article: Helping Website/Article