The Boy Scouts of America (BSA) has a strong focus on skills and leadership development. However, much of the curriculum emphasizes rote memorization of skills, often done in fixed environments. This is the same at most BSA skills events such as Camporee, where teams can rehearse events in their entirety. While these skills are invaluable, they do not exercise other skills, such as improvisation and rapid decision-making, that are needed for the kinds of dynamic changes in today's environment. Real life is significantly more dynamic, and the current curriculum does not deliberately exercise skills needed to meet these kind of challenges, such as improvisation and rapid decision making.
To meet this need, we adapted Destination Imagination's (DI) Instant Challenge to the Scouting format. Instant Challenges (ICs) are timed tasks where a team is given a novel task and has to develop a solution under time pressure. Teams are graded not just on whether they can perform the task, but also on their creativity and their ability to work as a team.
We at Alameda Troops 2 and 7 have created several Scouting Instant Challenges that exercise creative application of Scouting skills to new and unexpected environments. We have trialed multiple Scouting ICs and have found them to be fun and a good way to develop the attributes needed to meet the challenges of a constantly-changing world.
We now give an example ruleset and run-through for an Instant Challenge. This example challenge takes place in an area with a 10'x10' square, marked off by tape. A team, usually a Patrol, is given a rule-sheet that describes the challenge, rules, and scoring:
Your goal is to build the tallest structure using only your Ten Essentials packs and gear inside. You will have five minutes to devise and to build the structure, which must be built inside the square. At the end of the five minutes, no Scouts may be inside the square and touching the structure. You will be scored based on how well you worked as a team, the creativity of your solution, and the height of the structure. Height is measured from the ground to the tallest point on the structure.
Scoring
- 1 pt for every inch of height.
- Up to 20 points for how well your team communicated with each other.
- Up to 10 points for getting input from every team member.
- Up to 10 points for leadership, if the team is able to develop a plan and members take initiative.
- Up to 10 points for the creativity of the solution.
A judge (or the appraiser from the DI world) will be present to answer questions and to score the team based on the criteria. Because of the complexity of the challenges, each team has at least one judge. The team may ask the judge questions at any point during the five minutes
There are two key essentials for ICs, novelty and hacks. To ensure the former, the challenge must be new to each participant, as the purpose of the IC is to learn how to adapt on-the-fly. Unfortunately, this also means once an IC is run with a Troop, it cannot be reused without major changes to the ruleset.
Hacks come from workarounds and loopholes engineered into the rules. For example, nothing in the example's rules says Scouts cannot be outside the square but supporting the structure using cord or other items from their Ten Essentials. There is also no rule stating the tower needs to be in the center of the square, which can be exploited for their needs. The judge should answer only to what the rules state, but not offer any hacks or solutions.
These are the Instant Challenges we have run for our Troop meetings. Each entry lists the rules-sheet given to each team and the scoring sheet for the judges.
- [Signaling Challenge Rules](./challenges/Signaling Challenge.docx)
- [Sender Sheet](./challenges/Signaling Challenge Sender Sheet.docx)
- [Receiver Sheet](./challenges/Signaling Challenge Receiver Sheet.docx)
- [Wordlist](./challenges/Signaling Challenge Wordlist.docx)
- Knot Binding IC
- Knot Binding Judging Sheet
- Thanks to Frederikke Elnegaard for contributing this activity!
Following are some notes from our experiences running these exercises at Scout Troop meetings. While every unit's context can be very different, we hope these will help you adapt these ICs for your needs.
At the heart of every IC are a set of possible loopholes that can be exploited by teams if they are read closely and are clever enough. Judges running the challenge will need to remember to only answer within what is written on the rules-sheet: Everything else is allowed and nothing is forbidden (outside of ethical and safety limits). Our goal is to encourage Scouts to develop creative workarounds and hacks to achieve their goals.
Two major issues arise from the fact that our Troops meet in a gym: The noise level and the ability for participants to peek over at other teams and copy their solutions. Destination Imagination Instant Challenge sessions take place in rooms with just one team and the appraiser, which is infeasible for moderate-sized Troops and larger. Indeed, it is likelier you will have to run all teams concurrently in the same shared space, such as a church gym or a school cafeteria. The first and largest consequence of this is the noise level will be high, as you will have several teams trying to develop their solution at the same time. Some DI ICs are performance based, and these cannot work as well in a noisy environment. Possible solutions to this include:
- Avoid performance-based ICs.
- Have each team perform one-at-a-time.
- Have ICs where the goal is to stay silent.
The second is peeking: If one team has developed a novel solution, other teams will observe them and implement that solution. Dealing with this can be trickier, as it requires the judges to keep an eye on their team and see if they are simply copying their neighbor's solution. This is mitigated by the fact that our scoring rubrics favor good teamwork and leadership, and oftentimes a team can rank highly without actually completing the task by scoring well on those attributes.
Since DI ICs run one team at a time, they can use a gamut of materials and area preparations that may not be practical for Troop-wide event with 5+ teams running concurrently. For our ICs, we have focused on using the Scouting Ten Essentials as their base materials for the event, with occasional supplementation from Troop camping equipment, such as lashing poles and rope. The major benefit of using their Ten Essentials as the materials for the event is it forces Scouts to familiarize with their kit and to become creative with secondary uses. It also encourages Scouts to have their Ten Essentials packs with them.