Playing Games for Education!

Tag: free inquiry

I went to the Nether!

December 3, 2020 / / 0 Comments

I went to the Nether!

 

So I have been watching this video about making machines with redstone and I figured I’d try making the first one for this week’s post.

 

However I instantly ran into a problem because I need an observer to make it and to make an observer you need Nether quartz

 

 

Okay, new goal! Get a working Nether portal. I have actually been mining really close to two busted portals but I didn’t realize what they were until a couple weeks ago. So I figured I would break down the worse off of the two so I could rebuild the other.

 

 

So I salvaged what I needed and headed to the more complete portal!

 

 

Then I was ready to try it out, but I didn’t have any  with my flint and steel. So I had to spend time running around to get that. But THEN I was ready! I stocked up with weapons, food, extra flint and steel, materials to make a shelter if need be. And I tried to start the portal but ended up setting myself on fire.

 

Then I decided to check out the bricks that were lighting up and bits of stuff were flying off of. A quick search revealed that there were crying obsidian and needed to be replaced for the portal to work again. Thankfully I still have more obsidian from the other broken portal, so I hacked the crying obsidian away and replaced it. Now I was ready to start the portal.

 

 

Yeah!! But the night cycle was about to start and I had no idea if that would affect things in the Nether so I decided to sleep and go in the morning.

 

After one last gear check I was, once again, ready to go through the portal

 

 

This video is pretty long and is basically me going to the Nether and being freaked out by the weird noises I was hearing and doing a mad dash for the closest materials I could mine. Eventually I come back victoriously and make my long awaited observer!

 

 

Alas, my time was up and I needed to stop playing Minecraft and move on other things. Maybe next session I’ll have everything that I need to make my sugar cane factory machine. But for now I’m happy that I took an unexpected trip to the Nether tonight.

 

Until next time?

Things actually worked out!

November 21, 2020 / / 0 Comments

I think I have been doing this wrong this whole time! I know it has only been a couple weeks but starting my Minecraft sessions by watching some tutorials and planning out what I want to do has resulted in a much better experience. Not that my goals have been very extreme but I have to start somewhere I suppose. So for this session I wanted to collect sugar cane, to make paper, and redstone and iron, to make a compass. With paper and a compass I can make a locator map which I am hoping will help me out in this game. I have seen sugar cane growing around my newest house/cave, because there are water sources nearby. From the videos I watched sugar cane only grows by a water source and you are supposed to harvest it on the second, or middle, block. I’m not sure why you are supposed to harvest it that way because the video didn’t explain it but I did it that way and now have a bunch of sugar cane! I think I might try and start growing it next week, but we’ll see. For the redstone I have two choices, I could try to dig down where my new base is and hope to find some, or I could try and find my way back to my first base. Since I wanted to try, again, to get back to my first base I decided to give that a go. I have tried to venture out to my first Minecraft home/base a few times already but I ended up going deeper into the mountains and snowy area, apparently my sense of direction in Minecraft is pretty bad. Yet, during this session I was able to find my way home! It was great to be back and grab some of the redstone for my compass. But first, I wanted to kill some zombies from my zombie spawner room. When I died I started off at level one again so I wanted to regain some lost ground. Maybe next week I’ll explore what levels do in this game. Anyway, after I killed some zombies and planted some seeds at home I was ready to make my locator map but then I realized my mistake. Worried that I might die and not be able to find my loot within five minutes I only took a small amount of my paper (made from the sugar cane) with me. So now I needed to somehow get back to my newest base. I really didn’t plan this out very well.

 

I ended up making two compasses and took them both with me on my way to find the new base. After a night of rest I headed off, thankfully I had just made the trip so I was able to recognize some landmarks and made it back to my newest base in no time, and I now know that it is due east of my original base. 

 

And then, I did it!!! I made a locator map!!

Then I took it out, and it was okay I guess. I think I had built it up to be this game changing item when in fact it was just a somewhat useful tool. Although maybe if I look more into it I’ll understand how useful it can be. All in all I was happy that I was able to get something done and after that I decided to go down and do some mining because I still had some time. I ended up finding more redstone, gold and iron. 

Until next time!

I cannot believe that is it November 20th!

November 20, 2020 / / 0 Comments

This term has absolutely flown by! I am generally not much of a journal/blogger so writing all the posts for my various classes has been a bit strange but it might be nice to look back on and relive my experiences.

Enough about the constant march of time, and more about getting out of this chair and on to a much smaller seat on a rail. Because rowing machine!

I am still really enjoying every chance I get to hop onto the rowing machine but its been harder and harder to fit it into my schedule these days. Lately I had been using rowing workouts from YouTube but this past week I have just been going for 30 mins in 10 min set. I take about a one min break between each set of 10 mins. I might have to do this next week as well because I find it can be nice to sort of check out with an audio book or podcast while I row. I typically like to have the coaching aspect from the YouTube videos but for now I really need some time where I don’t need to be paying attention to anything. Or if I am paying attention it isn’t information I need to retain.

The audiobook I have been listening to is called The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin.
https://www.audible.ca/pd/The-Left-Hand-of-Darkness-Audiobook/B071VM1Y82?qid=1605932578&sr=1-1&ref=a_search_c3_lProduct_1_1&pf_rd_p=b278ed0a-c3b2-4491-808c-7cb2190a487c&pf_rd_r=TZZVC6C14XAM5YTPNGC0

When I am looking for something a bit lighter I like to listen to The Weirdest Thing I Learned This Week podcast by Popular Science.
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-weirdest-thing-i-learned-this-week/id1377843908
This podcast usually pretty entertaining and the time fits well with my stretching and workout so I feel like I got some brain “down time” and energized my body with the workout.

Until next time!

Starting again.

November 13, 2020 / / 0 Comments

Here I go again! I started again respawning at my house far far away from my dead body. I also realized that I got back to level one when I died so that was not the best way to find that out. So I had a choice to make, try and go back to find where I was when I died or forget about it and travel somewhere else. I ended up collecting a few things around my house, making a new set of armour and heading out to see if I could find the cave I died in. 

 

Surprisingly it worked! I was able to navigate back to where I had so unceremoniously been killed by a wizard but there was nothing there. No loot to be seen, all of the items I had been carrying were gone. One more thing I should have checked beforehand but I didn’t so I found out after being confused about the loot situation. Apparently the items you drop when you die will disappear if they are not collected promptly (you only have 5 minutes to get back) and I waited too long between plays so even though I found my cave camp, all my stuff was gone 🙁

 

Thoroughly annoyed I started going on an adventure to make a map! First I needed sugar cane for paper and I think I have the ingredients for a compass at my home base. I want to make a locator map so I have an easier time navigating around the world. So I started the journey to what I thought was towards my home base but ended up going wildly off course. But, I found what looks to be a pretty cool chasm with loads of materials and a lava flow at the bottom. I decided that my luck with daylight was running out and this place seemed cool so I built a place to stay the night and started digging.

 

 

After digging around for a while I emerged into daylight once again and start wandering around again, this time very very lost. The next day I ended up stumbling into a town with townspeople in it. This is the first town with people that I have found so it was a bit exciting for me. I ended up trading some leather for a emerald and ransacking the houses. Now that I’m thinking about it, I probably should have checked if that would have bad results before doing it, but it seems like the townsfolk are still friendly so I guess its okay.

 

 

Lastly, here is a video about Minecraft maps which inspired my gameplay last session.

 

Until next time!

Is this what rage quitting feels like?

November 9, 2020 / / 0 Comments

I have been exploring my Minecraft world during my sessions and trying to sort of discover different aspects of the game as I go along. I watched a few videos in September on how to get started, and when I find something interesting I’ll look it up but other than that I’ve been going it on my own. However, I think this is when that method stops and I start doing more research into things. I normally play this game as a bit of a ‘brain break’ and start it up with the goal of exploring what I can do. However I find that I end up wandering around and digging/mining without much point to it and the last few game sessions I have left feeling like I didn’t do much.

 

Last week a frustrating Minecraft session ended when I died in a spot that I am not really sure I know how to get back to. I went outside of a new place I had built at night and was immediately attacked and killed by a wizard. I suppose it wasn’t so much of a rage quit as it was just giving up because I couldn’t be bothered to deal with finding all the stuff I had dropped. So here is when I decided that maybe some time I put aside to playing the game should be shifted to watching some how-to videos. For next week I am going to  search out some resources on YouTube or maybe some other blogs and start my game sessions with a plan. Hopefully that will give me a goal to work towards in my exploring of Minecraft.

 

Until next time!

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