Introduction

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Most of you have signed up for this class knowing a bit about Minecraft already, but I'd like to point out that you can take this class whether or not you're familiar with Minecraft. We only ask that you purchase a legitimate copy of Minecraft (it's a good investment!)

Typically, you (the reader) would fit into one of these demographics.

• Have heard about Minecraft, just bought the game for this class.
• Dusted off an old copy of Minecraft to get back into it for this class.
• Currently play Minecraft, would like to learn more about what Redstone can do.

We want to emphasize that whether you fall into these demographics, or are even more experienced with redstone than what we described (go you!), we will work with you to help you become better computer scientists and engineers with the help of Minecraft.

We'll cover some basics in this introductory chapter. Specifically, we'll start off with some basic information about the game itself (history, uses, etc.), the controls, and some more information about redstone in particular.

If you haven't bought Minecraft already, please buy it! You can find it at the Mojang Website for less than $30 USD.

NOTE: Make sure to buy the JAVA edition, not the Bedrock, Mobile, or Windows 10 editions. Our special suite of mods only work with the Java edition of the game.

In-Textbook Schematics

We use the website http://cubical.xyz to power our in-textbook demos. Some basic tips and tricks:

• red wool signifies 'input' blocks
• blue wool signifies 'output' blocks
• click on the demo to interact with it (you may remove blocks and place new blocks as you wish, it won't persist if you reload the page or navigate away)
• The top menu allows you to download these schematics as Minecraft worldfiles, if you so desire to use them in projects or as reference material.
• The demos are not perfect- you may sometimes see a glitchy black screen. Should this occur, press 'esc' and use the button labelled '[reload]' at the bottom of the demo to reload it.