Creator's Studio
  • Intro
  • Course Blog
  • Projects
    • Past Student Projects
  • Resources
    • Course Instructional Videos >
      • Adobe Illustrator CS 4
      • Autodesk 123D Design
      • Cardboard Construction
      • Drill Press
      • Hummingbird Robotics
      • Inkscape
      • Miter Saws
      • TinkerCAD
      • Weebly
    • Where to buy for yourself
  • Student Blogs
  • About
    • Teacher Resources
    • Contact
  • Special Projects

A Slight Diversion - Recreating Tenochtitlan in Minecraft EDU

4/13/2016

1 Comment

 
Traditionally, during Technology Class, I take my 7th grade students through a quick design and build unit using MinecraftEDU. While it is an enjoyable experience, the unit has always lacked context. My history teacher and I have talked about a joint project for the last two years, where we might integrate Minecraft with the study of some ancient culture, but we've never got the timing to work. 

Thankfully, this year, we worked through the schedule and the class is now engaged in the recreation of the Aztec city of Tenochtitlan, based on the research students have done to understand what the city may have looked like. 

Working in small groups of two to three, students have chosen an architectural structure, ranging from Great Temple, to marketplace, to Chinampas (floating gardens) and other significant buildings. We designated one team as City Planners. The City Planners were required to map out where various structures were located in the city, and to coordinate with all the builders accordingly. City Planners also distribute supplies out to the various teams. For those who know Minecraft, City Planners were set to Creative Mode, while the remainder are set to MinecraftEDU mode. This latter mode gives students a mixture of creative and survival in that they do not need to worry about hunger or the gathering of supplies, but they also cannot fly. City Planners, on the other hand, need to fly as they review the progress on the overall city plan.

This inability to fly for regular builders has created a stir in some of the players, particularly one of the pyramid groups. They asked for special permission to fly in order to speed up their build process, but were denied. To get around this, they created an innovative system of building out each corner with initial blocks from which they could quickly push out the layered blocks. It was wonderful to see their process of working through a challenging issue with given design constraints.
​
​We are about mid-way through the unit, and while it has taken time for some players to get acclimated to the environment, we have reached a state of flow. I look forward to the end result, but the process has lived up to my expectations and far exceeds what I could have done on my own.
1 Comment
Minecraft Server link
11/22/2017 11:07:07 am

Thank you for helping people get the information they need.

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    Author

    Mr. Umekubo
    "Maker Ordinaire"

    Archives

    February 2020
    October 2019
    September 2019
    April 2019
    December 2018
    September 2018
    May 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    September 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013

    Categories

    All
    3d Printing
    3d Scanning
    Arduino
    Automata
    Bristlebots
    Circuits
    Conductive Tape
    Creativity
    Curriculum Integration
    Design Process
    Drill Press
    E Textiles
    Hacking
    Hummingbird
    Laser Cutter
    Laser Cutter
    Makey Makey
    Mechanical Motion
    Minecraft
    Miter Saw
    PIRL
    Professional Development
    Professional Development
    Raspberry Pi
    Robotics
    Rube Goldberg
    Scratch
    Scribblebots
    Set Design
    Soldering
    Squishy Circuits
    Video Instruction
    Wind Tunnel
    Woodworking

Creative Commons License
Creator's Studio by John Umekubo is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Westside Neighborhood School
5401 Beethoven Street, Los Angeles, CA 90066
www.wns-la.org