Doing your astronomy homework with Minecraft models

Ncorrigible sez, "My son was told to make a model of Saturn and its major moons for his 3rd grade science project. He and his geek dad built this model in Minecraft and make the video to showcase it. Video games in the classroom = living in an awesome future."

Catspork's Adventures in Minecraft (Episode 1) - Saturn (Thanks, Ncorrigible, via Submitterator!)

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

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Orky

I like how instead of telling us about the moons, he actually reads the signs with his notes on them, and even has trouble reading a few words (dense), instead just telling the viewers about the moons. But hey, I did that too back then, and we didn’t have Minecraft :-P
Anonymous

This is brilliant, kudos to your son.
prion

Sweet! Looks like it was fun! I did my final project in High School Physics utilizing Quake – made some levels to show off basic physics principles. Video games DO work well in the classroom.
Anonymous

What a great project – nice work!
Anonymous

The next day, he was suspended for bringing a virtual pickaxe to school.
jpollock

Very cool, the mooing cow and swimming pig are nice touches. :)
Anonymous

Making + Science = WIN!

Ok it’s digital making but still.

And “Venus looks like the Death Star, because it does,” is just awesome.
Benjamin

“Saturn is made of iron ore and the rings are made of sponge”. I hope he understands that’s his Minecraft version of Saturn. Why couldn’t he have made the planet out of clouds and the rings out of ice particles? At least I hope he knows what they’re really made of.
- Anonymous
  
  Duh, because you can’t build with cloud. you can with ice though…
manicsparkle

I’ll chime in here as the proud father of Catspork.

He’s quite aware of the actual composition of the real planet Saturn. In fact, he now knows an amazing amount of information about Saturn, far more than what I would expect from any 3rd grader. The blocks he chose were more or less match the colors of these objects. Sponge was picked for the rings simply because it’s cool looking and you don’t get to work with those blocks in the more recent builds of Minecraft.

He’s in 3rd grade, so I think he’s allowed a bit of artistic license! ;)
Anonymous

…which is really cool
anansi133

I hope someday it’ll be easy to just link to the minecraft world itself, instead of having to deal with a video file. There are a lot of models out there that I want to explore for myself instead of having to settle for a guided tour.