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16-year-old Makes Working Scientific Calculator in Minecraft

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Re: 16-year-old Makes Working Scientific Calculator in Minecraft

#11

Post by jacquesm »

shantanubala wrote: post #5

I honestly love seeing stuff like this -- it's really cool. But part of me always wonders, "I wonder what this kid could've built if he had a more meaningful project in mind?" I understand that you need to have a certain amount of "fun" before you can do "serious" things, but I can't help but feel a little disappointed that he didn't "dream bigger." It's not really a criticism. This kid is probably really smart, but…

What do you mean by 'more meaningful'? I think it is fantastic that he managed to be so creative that he managed to turn a game into a calculator, something it clearly wasn't intended to be.

That shows a lot of skill and resourcefulness, it also shows quite a bit of dedication and stamina. All of those are great traits and I'm sure the experience improved on these.

This impresses me very much.

Can you give an example of what you would consider to be a more meaningful project? Something that you would consider to be approaching full potential?

Re: 16-year-old Makes Working Scientific Calculator in Minecraft

#12

Post by geden »

shantanubala wrote: post #5

I honestly love seeing stuff like this -- it's really cool. But part of me always wonders, "I wonder what this kid could've built if he had a more meaningful project in mind?" I understand that you need to have a certain amount of "fun" before you can do "serious" things, but I can't help but feel a little disappointed that he didn't "dream bigger." It's not really a criticism. This kid is probably really smart, but…

How would one decide what their full potential was? Or perhaps, deeper, who would decide what their full potential was?

Seems like a massive achievement to me, and that such effort and focus will translate well into the real world and if it doesn't for him personally, it could well spur others on.

Re: 16-year-old Makes Working Scientific Calculator in Minecraft

#13

Post by jacquesm »

joe42 wrote: post #9
cookiecaper wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Minecraft is awesome because it provides a convenient and ready simulator for this kind of work. It gets people interested and involved. It just seems much more accessible than downloading a "real" simulator somewhere online. I think MC provides a great mechanism for exploration in electronics/circuitry and something like this proves it. What do you want this person to do instead?

> What do you want this person to do instead? I get that Minecraft is fun , but wouldn't it have been more practical , in the long run, to have built something equally cool in a real CAD/HDL/etc. software? It'd be really cool if someone could build a CAD/HDL/programming "IDE" that was as "fun" to "play" as Minecraft, but still as "useful" as something used in "the real world." But I suppose this is the same desire th…

> I get that Minecraft is fun, but wouldn't it have been more practical, in the long run, to have built something equally cool in a real CAD/HDL/etc. software?

I find it all the more impressive because he used an environment that was not meant to be used like this.

That's like running the marathon with a handicap and still winning.

And if he can do it in minecraft I think that he'll take like a fish to water once he gets his hands on other, more powerful tools. That's mostly a matter of access, 16 year olds are more likely to have minecraft on the machines they have access to than CAD/HDL software and the hardware to go with it.

Re: 16-year-old Makes Working Scientific Calculator in Minecraft

#16

Post by tibbon »

jacquesm wrote: post #15

I watched the video all the way to the end, this is nothing short of amazing. Now I get why they call it 'creative mode'.

If they pulled it off in survival mode, I would be absolutely floored. Well, I still am anyway, but still- Damn creepers.

Re: 16-year-old Makes Working Scientific Calculator in Minecraft

#17

Post by [deleted] »

cookiecaper wrote: post #8
bryanh wrote: post #4

Could Minecraft be that little thing that teaches kids about logic? Maybe Jeb and co. should consider adding even simpler logic based building blocks, more akin to Lego's Mindstorm as an alternative to relays and switches. I find it fascinating to think in 10-20 years many will be looking back fondly on how they learned to hack with an unassuming little game: Minecraft.

There is an unbelievable amount of potential in Minecraft that is completely untapped. It's really an amazing environment and I'm surprised it hasn't spawned "sandbox games" as a completely separate and significant genre, especially since a big reason Minecraft remains "untapped" is Notch's reticence to open the platform up and push the game forward.

[deleted]

Re: 16-year-old Makes Working Scientific Calculator in Minecraft

#18

Post by withad »

cookiecaper wrote: post #8
bryanh wrote: post #4

Could Minecraft be that little thing that teaches kids about logic? Maybe Jeb and co. should consider adding even simpler logic based building blocks, more akin to Lego's Mindstorm as an alternative to relays and switches. I find it fascinating to think in 10-20 years many will be looking back fondly on how they learned to hack with an unassuming little game: Minecraft.

There is an unbelievable amount of potential in Minecraft that is completely untapped. It's really an amazing environment and I'm surprised it hasn't spawned "sandbox games" as a completely separate and significant genre, especially since a big reason Minecraft remains "untapped" is Notch's reticence to open the platform up and push the game forward.

It is steadily becoming a lot more open - Jeb's the lead developer now and a big focus has been put on adding mod support. They've hired the guys behind Bukkit (a popular third-party mod manager for servers) to help with that, I believe.

Clones have also started to appear but it's still small indie companies making them, meaning it'll take time before many are at the same level as Minecraft.

However, the bigger companies do seem to be paying attention (an EA bigwig spoke about Minecraft in a Gamasutra piece the other day [1], though he was saying fairly obvious things), so it'll be interesting to see what the genre's like in 5-10 years' time.

[1] http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/167137/Minecrafts_future_...

Re: 16-year-old Makes Working Scientific Calculator in Minecraft

#19

Post by tibbon »

HardyLeung wrote: post #6

This is very very impressive, though I hope the kid's next project is some creative and useful applications rather than another Minecraft undertaking.

This is today's version of building your own computer on wire wrap in your garage. I don't think you'd go back in time and tell Woz/Jobs that the Home Computing Club or the Apple 1 weren't useful. If a 16 year old understands in detail how a graphing calculator works from a raw bit-logic level, then I think it speaks that they'll have a much more interesting career in store for them than 99.99% of 16 year olds.

Re: 16-year-old Makes Working Scientific Calculator in Minecraft

#20

Post by polyfractal »

joe42 wrote: post #9
cookiecaper wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Minecraft is awesome because it provides a convenient and ready simulator for this kind of work. It gets people interested and involved. It just seems much more accessible than downloading a "real" simulator somewhere online. I think MC provides a great mechanism for exploration in electronics/circuitry and something like this proves it. What do you want this person to do instead?

> What do you want this person to do instead? I get that Minecraft is fun , but wouldn't it have been more practical , in the long run, to have built something equally cool in a real CAD/HDL/etc. software? It'd be really cool if someone could build a CAD/HDL/programming "IDE" that was as "fun" to "play" as Minecraft, but still as "useful" as something used in "the real world." But I suppose this is the same desire th…

I don't think this is quite true. I see minecraft as a good stepping stone into more advanced things.

When I was his age, I was using the Lego Mindstorms heavily. At first I started with the built in GUI language, which was extremely limiting. After that I moved to progressively more advanced languages and IDEs until I was using Not-Quite-C, a version of C compiled for the Mindstorms.

These things tend to work as stepping stones. Had the kid started on something like CAD, he may have gotten stuck at an impasse that was too difficult for him, lost motivation and went back to playing Call of Duty.

Perhaps his next project will be in a "real" application, instead of Minecraft, because he has the motivation and knowledge to move forward.

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