How many hours is a typical Eagle Project????

[Eagle732]

Basement, I know a dad who did his son'e Eagle project for him. Dad did everything from the write up to the construction with no help from the son or anyone else.

[Beavah]

Yah, hmmm...

 

Our council would say "no" to the playground mulching, since that would be routine maintenance given what yeh describe, BD. We'd also say "no" to the boulder thing (no leadership).

 

The ramp is an edge case that would be left to the unit to decide, eh? I'd guess that at least a third of our units would say "no" based on what yeh describe.

 

The tougher ones are the dad-does-everything bit. Those can only really be caught at the unit level, because districts by and large don't know the lad well enough to know if he's just really nervous in front of strangers or whether he doesn't know his own project because it's really dad's project. A few units have the gumption to deal with that sort of thing, and they usually have dealt with it long before the Eagle process.

 

Lots of units, though, are just a group of conflict-adverse parents, and while they resent dads & kids like this, they don't really have the mechanisms or the will to address it. Sometimes, they get confused and think they can't do anything because someone starts shouting "you can't add to the requirements!" and they can't find any explicit statement in the requirements that a parent can't "help" with da entire project and writeup.

 

Beavah

 

[Brewmeister]

There's a danger in assuming one knows everything that went into a project based solely on what can be seen from the outside. Maybe it did in fact go down that way, but just maybe it didn't.

[Twocubdad]

Moose -- I use the term "scouthours" not to exclude non-scouts (I know anyone can help) rather to differentiate between an hour of labor by a 12-y.o. and a actual worker.

 

I'm a contractor. One of my means of judging the scope of a project is to estimate the labor required if I hired an actual subcontractor to do the job. If one of my subs could do it in a day or two with two or three workers -- or about 20 or 30 "manhours" -- that's probably a decent Eagle project and will come in at about 125 to 150 "scouthours."

 

I'm just glad I don't have to pay the Scouts by the hour!

[BSA24]

I was told 200 hours back a long time ago. There were over 300 man hours and I personally put in over 60 myself.

[JMHawkins]

And of course there's generally a negative correlation between da age of the Eagle Scout and the number of man-hours as well.

 

Beavah, do you really mean a negative correlation? As in, older scouts tend to have smaller projects?

[jdsmerud]

There is a reason the focus has shifted from "scout-hours" to "leadership demonstrated". A scout might show considerable leadership through collecting data, securing supplies, mail campaigns, etc. but the project involved a small amount of "work hours". For example researching historical info, contacting personal involved and placing markers at the sites involves few work hours but demonstrates excellence in leadership by the Life Scout. It is really relative to the project and the Scout, as a leader we have to make sure we are pushing the boys just enough. As for dad doing the whole project for a boy, it has and will slip past the board unless the local leader corrects the adult early on. Don't put a boy in the position to be rejected because of your unwillingness to speak out against a parent, like I've said in other posts it isn't pretty sometimes but it's your job. We have a obligation to the future of the program and to each and every boy to keep the standard and ensure that each Scout gets something out of the expierence. It may be a dual standard, but I expect higher achievement from the high achievers and high achievement from rest. It is our honor to push these young men beyond what they believe to be their limits.

[Lisabob]

scoutson just finished his project. Hours worked totaled about 125 but that excluded fundraising, planning, drive time (parents driving), picking up/delivering material and finished product, meetings with advisor, doing the paperwork, etc. So that's just 125 hours of actual physical work on building the project. I had no idea that other folks count all that other stuff - his troop doesn't, nor did his previous troop - so I guess I'll be taking those "averages" with an even larger grain of salt from here on out.

 

I think Brewmeister makes a good point too, though. Having watched his project unfold from an arm's-length distance, I now have a much greater appreciation for all that goes on "behind the scenes" and how a project that looks fairly simple when done, can still present plenty of challenges for a boy to handle when in progress.

 

 

 

[Callooh! Callay!1428010939]

How long is a typical rope?

[Brewmeister]

I would also offer the counterpoint that in my personal observation Eagle projects seem more complex as a rule today than when I went through the program. Maybe the rules have changed but I can't think of any projects in my old troop that required a fundraising component...they were all just "work" projects that paled in comparison to what I see being done today. Maybe my own troop was just a weak program.

[Lisabob]

For a while, I don't even think there was an Eagle Project requirement. My dad, who is an Eagle, mentioned to my son that when he earned Eagle, there was no such thing (probably 1961-62 or so). Dad was also surprised to learn that Eagles have their own COH now, he figured it would be part of the regular troop COH because that's how he remembers it being in his day - not some big hoopla almost like a graduation party.

 

 

[JMHawkins]

...For example researching historical info, contacting personal involved and placing markers at the sites involves few work hours but demonstrates excellence in leadership by the Life Scout...

 

Hmmmm, not sure I agree. It demonstrates organizational ability, which is good, but leadership involves actually leading people. Writing a plan isn't leadership. Executing the plan as the guy in charge of the group of people doing the work is. The research and contact jdsmerud mentions is properly called "staff work" rather than leadership. Staff work is valuable. Having a plan going in is great, an example of being prepared, but there's the old saying that no battle plan survives contact with the enemy. "The enemy" in this case isn't someone shooting at you, but maybe mother nature burying a huge rock where you planned to excavate, or an ill-timed skiing accident putting one of your key resources on crutches for the project. Or the work simply taking longer than the "staff" sitting down at a desk thought it would.

 

Leadership requires navigating your team to the goal while dealing with obstacles that come up. Having a plan, even one that needs to be scrapped part-way through, is very helpful in that, but doesn't replace leading the effort. In fact, choosing between conflicting opinions of your "staff officers" is another important component of leadership.

 

Of course it's a question of where we're setting the bar, and for what age.

[Basementdweller]

I call BS on the there is no typical project.....

 

How many times have you seen the Paint X room in CO or build shelving for food pantry or kitchen....or build shed....... Our local nature center has a standard eagle project of building and installing 10 duck boxes, includes materials list and cost.

[ZScout5]

Brewmeister- your old troop was not weak, and it appears that National may agree with your observations on today's eagle projects.

 

In a recent Advancement News (links posted by bnelon in another thread) it states that projects that require little to no fundraising are to be preferred.

 

In addition, while planning hours should be counted, fundraising time should not be counted in project hours. Finally, that the planning and developing part of the project is just as important as the service and leadership part.

[Engineer61]

The one I've seen took 50 boys/parents for 10 hours to complete... so 500 hours + whatever upfront work the Scout put in.