Safety

Skating Merit Badge

Two requirements, and the second is a choice between four options that share no work at all. Ice skating is fourteen steps, roller skating thirteen, in-line skating sixteen, and skateboarding fourteen with a choice of three trick families out of five inside it. Between forty six and fifty two of this badge's seventy steps belong to an option nobody will do, and which option to take is settled by the rink, pavement or skatepark you can actually reach.

Elective Merit Badges Health Merit Badges Requirements Safety

Railroading Merit Badge

Seven requirements, of which six are reading and explaining at a table and the seventh is the only one that costs time or money. Requirement 7's two options are named misleadingly: Model Railroading offers two choices that need nothing but a pencil, while Railfanning has two of its four requiring purchased tickets. Requirement 4 asks for nine safety items twice and means two different lists, and one option inside requirement 7 is requirement 2 carried out for real.

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Rowing Merit Badge

Nine requirements, of which requirement 2 names four others by number and gates all of them: the Scouting America swimmer test must be passed before requirements 4, 5, 6 and 7. Rowing is the aquatics badge that does not print that test, so what it asks for is found elsewhere. Requirements 1, 3, 8 and 9 are seventeen dry steps the gate does not touch, requirement 4 offers an afternoon or a competitive season, and two of its five knots appear nowhere else in Scouting.

Elective Merit Badges Merit Badges Outdoors Requirements Safety

Cybersecurity Merit Badge

Nine requirements, and the one that matters most is easy to throw away: 4(f) asks you to list your own cyber attack surface, and two later options are exactly the work of acting on that list, though the badge never connects them. Requirement 5(c) offers nine options and needs three, several of which are the same evening. One option needs the system owner's permission and has a legal edge. Two of the four cryptography routes need another person to take part.

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Home Repairs Merit Badge

Requirement 1 is the only part everybody does. After that this badge is five menus and a fork: fourteen jobs chosen out of thirty-two, which is 4,704,000 different ways to earn it. About a dozen of the options need your home to supply the fault first, several pay for each other if picked together, three are closed in winter, and requirement 5 hides a compulsory task, shutting off the main water, in what looks like a menu heading.

Elective Merit Badges Merit Badges Requirements Safety

Model Design and Building Merit Badge

Six requirements, and the second one you read tells you to choose from the fourth: requirement 3 selects a subject from requirement 4, so the real decision happens a requirement before the options appear. The five scales differ by a factor of six and only one may be renegotiated, the printed book gets every metric conversion wrong, requirement 5 is a whole second model, and whether requirement 5 must actually be built is a question its own lettered parts do not answer.

Elective Merit Badges Merit Badges Requirements Safety

Photography Merit Badge

Eight requirements, and the one that shapes everything is requirement 7: it names requirements 4, 5 and 6 by number in order to forbid reusing their photographs. That makes this badge fifteen to nineteen distinct images rather than the handful it looks like, and the badge never says so. Requirement 7 also hides an approval in the middle, on the plan and before the shooting, and requirement 4 is simply requirement 2 demonstrated with a camera.

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Safety Merit Badge

Nine requirements, of which four are jobs done at home with an adult and then reviewed with the counselor: a hazard inspection, a fire-escape plan with an actual drill, a family emergency plan with a supplies kit, and a security inspection. Two of the four are the same walk round the same building, and all three checklists the badge names can be replaced by one your counselor approves.

Elective Merit Badges Merit Badges Requirements Safety

Horsemanship Merit Badge

Twelve requirements, eleven of them linear and one of them a single continuous ride disguised as seven lettered items. Five requirements need a horse in front of you, requirement 7 cannot be finished on a day you do not ride, and the badge numbers saddling a horse before catching and tying it.

Elective Merit Badges Animals Merit Badges Outdoors Requirements Safety

Composite Materials Merit Badge

Six requirements, and requirement 5 is numbered in the reverse of the order it happens in: the site, the supervision and the marking scheme all have to be agreed before the two projects they apply to. At least one project must come from the merit badge pamphlet, so the pamphlet is a dependency rather than background reading, and six safety data sheets have to be obtained along the way.

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Digital Technology Merit Badge

Nine requirements, and the one that takes the longest hides its own condition in the sentence above the options: each of the three projects chosen at requirement 6 has to be copied to a backup device. The badge also asks for a parent or guardian's permission five separate times, and two of the five routes at requirement 8 are visits to real places rather than desk work.

Elective Merit Badges Merit Badges Requirements Safety Technology

Astronomy Merit Badge

Nine requirements, and nine separate parts of them need a clear night that the badge never mentions. Requirement 6(b) wants four Moon sketches at the same hour within a single one-week period; requirement 8(b) wants ten objects beyond those observed in requirement 4, which makes requirement 4 its prerequisite; and requirement 8 as a whole is agreed with your counselor rather than simply chosen.

Elective Merit Badges Merit Badges Outdoors Requirements Safety