Learning About Logic Gates In Minecraft

The game of Minecraft has been exerting an irresistible pull on young players for nearly a decade now. Naturally, as parents we think “something this much fun can’t possibly be good for my kids!” We, and many other educators worldwide, disagree. Here we’d like to explore how we use Minecraft Redstone system to teach a concept that’s a standard item on engineering school curriculum:electrical circuits and logic gates.

For those of you not familiar with Redstone, it is a mineral item used in Minecraft to transmit power from one of many power output devices. It is also used in creating input devices and brewing recipes for potions.

Redstone circuits need to be built in certain ways. If they are built too close together, they can accidently automatically connect. This requires students to plan ahead the construction of any Redstone circuits, a useful skill they need to apply over and over. Any student who skips the planning step is going to find themselves destroying and rebuilding parts or the entire circuit system to better fit in with other circuits or to not interfere with existing architecture in their world.

Students will also learn about the speed, strength and length of signal propagation and the challenges of extending the signal with repeaters, and managing the speed using clock circuits. They will also do projects that will introduce them to And, Or and Not gates and be instructed on how to integrate them into simple machines and later asked to figure out which gate works best to achieve a certain goal in a build.

Minecraft activities like this teach creative problem solving, planning, aspects of design process, and specific engineering concepts. These are all valuable skills that transfer to real-world problems.