Monday 21 March 2016

MinecraftEdu Maths - Ratio & Proportion...And A Whole Lot More

Me: "Right guys, 1 Minecraft block = 5cm x 5cm x 5cm in real life...build me our ICT suite!"

Quite a few hours and a whole shed load of mathematical discussion and reasoning mixed in with a fair amount of calculation later and we had our ICT suite.



It seemed too good to waste so we developed it into an adventure map - a bit like this one.

Children now start in a hidden room to read the game instructions and stock up on equipment. They then emerge into the ICT suite charged with completing the tasks set in order to get enough redstone to complete the circuit and escape from the room.

It's got all the adventure map staples like parkour, a glass maze, more parkour, hidden doors, dead ends, wild goose chases, problems to solve and obviously - a bit more parkour.

They skills we learnt and developed while building the room pale into insignificance when compared with those we encountered creating the adventure map:
  • Redstone circuits aren't easy to make, especially those with timer loops and t-flip flops to turn buttons into levers.
  • Glass mazes need a lot of planning.
  • A quest of this size requires some serious story-boarding and scripting.
  • Doing all of this with 25 year 6 pupils takes a fair bit of communication and teamwork.
  • And on and on, you get the idea.
Now this year's Y6 are building level 2 - The Head Teacher's Office!