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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

#61

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

#62

Post by ugh »

shantanubala wrote: post #57
jacquesm wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I only now realized that my comment was a bit unnecessarily patronizing! I meant it as a wish that programming could be as fun as Minecraft, but also remain as efficient as something like Python. Imagine what that kid could build if a tool existed that was as interesting as Minecraft, but tailored toward making iPhone apps (or another very specific type of application). In the same amount of time, he could've probabl…

You are thinking about products and projects, the kid is thinking about having fun in a game. Totally different perspective.

It’s totally fun to just have fun without necessarily learning any important skills or developing a product that helps you make money.

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

#63

Post by ugh »

shantanubala wrote: post #56
geden wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I mean it this way (and the way I worded my comment was really poor, and the miscommunication is completely my fault!): Minecraft allows for very creative outcomes, but it isn't a very efficient tool for developing something complicated. Is it possible to create a more efficient tool that is equally engaging?

If it would be simpler you would get something much more complex than this calculator and once again ask the same question.

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

#65

Post by jebblue »

shantanubala wrote: post #54
angdis wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He is sixteen. "Meaningful" has a different definition for someone that age. I am in awe of the achievement not only because of the stupendous scope and complexity, but the sheer willpower and colossal amount of time it must have taken. I hope the kid gets a lot of mileage out of it and goes onto great things. At the very least, he has earned his geek union card for life.

My mistake -- my wording was a little poor. Minecraft is an environment that allows people to be very creative, but it isn't efficient in that process. When I say "meaningful" I meant it more as a comment that I wish a development environment would exist that was as engaging as Minecraft (like a game!) but as efficient as a programming language like Python. Because Minecraft is purely a game, it limits what a kid can…

It limits nothing just because it's a game. In World War II a guy was held in solitary confinement (a small wooden box) for 2 years. In that time to keep himself sane he designed and built 100% in his mind ... a complete working clock despite never having built anything like a clock or watch.

After the war, he built that clock and it worked.

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

#66

Post by LesZedCB »

BHSPitMonkey wrote: post #47
tibbon wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

> creepers So THAT'S what was causing the memory corruption.

brings a whole new understanding to "debugging"

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

#67

Post by JrodS »

iwwr wrote: post #27
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.

That's where mods like Redpower comes in. http://www.minecraftforum.net/topic/365357-123-eloraams-mods... The mods are really what set Minecraft apart.

Redpower is fantastic! I built an 8 bit ALU with it and its so much more pleasant (and faster) to work with than the standard redstone

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

#68

Post by unimpressive »

dxbydt wrote: post #28
joe42 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

true story. when I was 16 ( way back in the early 90s), my parents enrolled me in niit.com (presently a billion USD company that was at the time a tiny 3-room outfit ). niit taught cobol. I hated everything about cobol. I thought it was a shit language and the people who taught me cobol were shit. We were supposed to build an inventory control module in cobol. I didn't know what an inventory was, so they gave me an e…

> I hated everything about cobol. I thought it was a shit language and the people who taught me cobol were shit.

Well you probably weren't that far off on the former point.

>But when he saw the printer slowly rolling out sawtooth waves and square waves of various frequencies, he completely lost it & yelled at me for wasting the precious resources of the dot matrix printer to do frivolous nonsense. I got a F on cobol.

Maybe, but you get an A in my book. Because the image you just put into my head is magnitudes of awesome. The IBM-type manager yelling at this 16 year old hackerish kid for taking a computer joy ride. The same sort of computer joy ride that probably comprised the whole reason he had a job in the first place.

The irony is sweet (With a bitter aftertaste.), and I'm sorry you had to go through that.

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

#69

Post by shantanubala »

ugh wrote: post #63
shantanubala wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean it this way (and the way I worded my comment was really poor, and the miscommunication is completely my fault!): Minecraft allows for very creative outcomes, but it isn't a very efficient tool for developing something complicated. Is it possible to create a more efficient tool that is equally engaging?

If it would be simpler you would get something much more complex than this calculator and once again ask the same question.

But wouldn't it allow the kid to be more imaginative? Instead of building a calculator inside of a game, perhaps he could make his own game? Instead of building something that's already defined, wouldn't he have more opportunities to be creative?

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

#70

Post by shantanubala »

ugh wrote: post #62
shantanubala wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I only now realized that my comment was a bit unnecessarily patronizing! I meant it as a wish that programming could be as fun as Minecraft, but also remain as efficient as something like Python. Imagine what that kid could build if a tool existed that was as interesting as Minecraft, but tailored toward making iPhone apps (or another very specific type of application). In the same amount of time, he could've probabl…

You are thinking about products and projects, the kid is thinking about having fun in a game. Totally different perspective. It’s totally fun to just have fun without necessarily learning any important skills or developing a product that helps you make money.

I understand that, but are there opportunities to improve upon the "fun" of Minecraft that lead to an actually useful product? I'm sure the main motivation for building a calculator was the complexity of the problem -- not the usefulness of a Minecraft calculator. Imagine if the tools were tailored to keep the same level of fun while also empowering him to create something he could use!

That's what I meant by "think bigger" or "serious" -- the Minecraft calculator was fun and challenging, but is there something equally fun, equally challenging, but more useful? Can we make tools that empower kids to have more fun solving complex problems that lead to a useful result?

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