Daisy Create and Innovate

 If you look at the previous posts on this blog, you will see that this year GSUSA introduced three "Maker" badges for Daisies, Brownies and Juniors.  All these badges focus on planning and conceptual concepts, not on the skills to do particular crafts.  The third badge in this set is Create and Innovate and this post will look at the Daisy version of the badge.

In order to earn this badge, Daisies learn how makers build things to help people, animals, and the planet!  They;

• Make something to solve a problem
• Make something for someone else
• Make something even better

When Daisies have earned this badge, they'll know how to create and innovate objects that help others.

Opening Activity

The arrival activity for the first meeting is to build a tower from paper or plastic cups.  That tower is discussed during opening circle.

Make Something to Solve a Problem

The vocabulary words discussed during this step are "Maker" "user" "community" and "features" . Makers are described as people who create things to solve problems.  Daisies discuss problems in the world and possible solutions.  Then the leader shows them the craft they will be doing and they discuss the problems it solves and its features.  The two choices given are to help yourself or to help others and the only difference in the two is the choice of crafts.

Suggested crafts for Help Yourself are a paper mache' piggy bank, a pencil case or a cork board. For Help Others, the given crafts are creating a happiness box, planting a community garden and making cat toys. 

Arrival Activity 2

For the arrival activity at the second meeting, girls toss a ball around a circle while naming items that could be useful to particular users.  The in the opening circle they share some of these ideas and are asked if they could make the item and what features it should have. 

Make Something for Someone Else

After a discussion of user-centered design, the girls do a craft either for an imaginary character or for a loved one. Suggested projects for the character are sketching a piece of technology the character could use, designing a protective piece of clothing, building a means of transport such as a model car or plane, or making a magic wand.  Projects for another person are using upcycled materials to make whatever the girl wants to make, designing a game or creating a holder for craft supplies.  

Make Something Even Better

In this step, the leader goes over the design thinking process, the same one used with Think Like an Engineer and the mechanical engineering badges, and the troop talks about how they used it with one of the crafts done for this badge.  The two choices for this step are "Improve it" or "Innovate It". With Improve It, the girls show off one of their projects and talk about the problem it solves and the features that personalize it for the user.  The other girls offer suggestions for improvement and then the girls sketch the improved version of their craft.  For "Innovate It", girls talk about the problem solved by their craft and how the problem could be solved if they had unlimited time, money and materials.  They then sketch their innovation. 

VTK Resources

Besides the various summaries and handouts that were provided for all the Maker badges this year (see other posts) the provided materials for this badge are a project sheet for making a paper mache piggy bank, a vocabulary sheet with eleven words on it, and a diagram with GSUSA's Design Thinking Process, 

My Comments

I guess GSUSA considers its design thinking process to be a core competency.  One Journey (Think Like an Engineer) and now four badges (3 mechanical engineering and now this one) explicitly teach it--not only at the Daisy level but also at the Brownie and Junior level.  Even the older girls get it at least in the Journey.  I don't have any problem with this badge in an of itself, and if none of the other engineering badges appeal to you, this gives you more freedom in picking projects, but at least where I hang on in real life and online, I haven't heard leaders or girl clamoring for more engineering badges, which is what this is.