Minecraft is a bit of a hidden gem when it comes to teaching. It’s capable of simulating computation and electronic circuitry. One of things that can’t be unseen once you know it’s there.
This talk takes place inside the game world. I mean, the slides aren’t a powerpoint, but are instead signposts that I look at as I walk through the game world. Between slides are example circuits that demonstrate the concepts I explain.
For example, one of the circuits I demonstrate is based on an electronic chip called a 4051 multiplexer. It has 3 “switch” inputs and 1 “power” input. Depending on the switches, it outputs the power to 1 of 8 “power” outputs. This lets you route power to 1 of 8 devices by toggling the binary input of those 3 “switches”. I build this chip inside Minecraft, and explain how the logic gates that power it work.
Some variations of the talk include integration into external applications, so that those applications can control the world, and players can interact with the applications.
For a Shopware conference; I built a shop integration. Players could see a list of products and drop items into a container to purchase the products.