End of the Project

Hey,

Well it seems that my project has run it's course. To finish off our project and tell the rest of my class about what I did I had to make a presentation in front of the class and tell them about what I did. It went pretty well over all. I really enjoyed this project and I feel like I learned a lot. I basically completed all the goals I set at the beginning of the year, with the exception of completing all of the achievements. I just want to thank my teacher Mr. Watson for helping Kyle and I out with our projects and taking time out of his busy schedule to play the game with us. I also want to thank Kyle for actually making the server for us to play on and for this whole project to actually happen. I feel like me choosing Minecraft as my project was a good idea because I really didn't have any trouble with my motivating myself to make progress. I hope that my next project will turn out just as well as this one did!

Thanks,

Braden

End of December

Hey,

Well we finally did it, we beat the Enderdragon! We collected all the supplies that we needed and found "The End" portal and beat the game. When we found "The End" portal we dug up from where it was and made a little tube to get to the surface.

This is the tube that we built to get easy access to "The End" portal

This is The End portal

We got Mr. Watson to help us out to beat the Enderdragon. The Enderdragon was actually surprisingly easy to beat! Considering we had three people to fight it, it wasn't that bad. 

This is the Enderdragon

This happens when you beat the Enderdragon

This portal appears when you beat the Enderdragon

When you walk in the portal it teleports you back to your bed you last slept in

Once we beat the Enderdragon and everything and found the portal back to the real world, there was this egg by where the Enderdragon died. When we tried to hit it, it teleported to a different spot. Apparently it's called the Ender Egg, but it actually has no meaning whatsoever. Also once we jumped into the portal back to the real world this dialog screen came up tell this story or something. It was really weird because it didn't make any sense. We all got tired of reading it because it was REALLY long, so we just pressed 'escape' on the keyboard and it exited the screen and went back to the minecraft world.

The Ender Egg

Here is some of the dialog that was at the end of the game

At this point the only thing I have left to do is to finish all the achievements. I only have four achievements left that I have to get which hopefully shouldn't be too hard, but I'm hoping I'll get those done. 

While Mr. Watson was getting some supplies to go fight the Enderdragon, Kyle and I decided to have a little bit of fun. 

This is a little island that we decided to blow up with a little bit of TNT ;)

By the end of the week I will hopefully have all the achievements that I need to finish all of my goals for this project. Fingers crossed!

Mentoring Time

Hey,

Since the last post Kyle and I have gotten Mr. Watson on the server and have gotten lots done with him. When we got him on we had some troubles with the server running and stuff like that, but we ended up getting it working with all three of us on. Mr. Watson taught us stuff about the biomes (different areas thoughout the minecraft world). Since the recent minecraft update they added some new biomes and Mr. Watson showed us a few of them. Mr. Watson also helped us with a few things around our "base area". He helped us with making a mob spawner by Kyle's house. Basically what a mob spawner is, is a big tower that is dark at the top which makes mobs (enemies) spawn at the top of the tower. In the middle of the tower there is a big hole which makes the mobs drop, and when they hit the bottom of the tower they died and you collect the XP points (used for upgrading your weapons and armor) and any items they've dropped. While Kyle and Mr. Watson worked on the spawner, I went out looking for a stronghold since we got enough blaze rods and ender pearls to make eyes of ender which are used to find a stronghold which is where you find a portal to "The End" which is where the Enderdragon is. I ended up finding the stronghold pretty fast, but I couldn't find "The End" portal in the stronghold. Mr. Watson ended up joining me in the hunt to find the portal in the stronghold. It took is FOREVER to find the portal, it actually took us 2 days. Thanks to Mr. Watson we probably wouldn't have ever found it, but we did end up finding it! We will soon be going into the portal to beat the Enderdragon, but at this point we just want to find enough supplies to be able to have a chance against the Enderdragon. Mr. Watson also taught Kyle and I about modding. We made another server that has this mod called Hack n Slash and it's actually really awesome. This mod lets each player to be able to choose a special character such as an archer, warrior, or a wizard. Choosing one of these will give you special abilities. Kyle chose to be an archer, Mr. Watson chose to be a wizard, and I'm the warrior.

It's been really fun playing with Mr. Watson and I'm really excited to try and beat the Enderdragon with him and Kyle. We will soon be going to "The End" and fighting the Enderdragon so stay tuned too see how we do in "The End"!

End of November

Hey,

Last time time I posted I explained lots about how Minecraft works. I've also posted a couple different pages on my blog about my friend Kyle's blog, and also the rules that we've made to make things a little bit easier. 

Gotten a lot done this month. I've finished my house. Made an awesome chest room with a lot of resources. 

This is my chest room

Within the last month Minecraft has updated which was a pain because they've added achievements to the game. I lost all of my achievements that I earned. Since the update I've gotten more than I had before I lost the achievements. Right now I have 24 achievements and there are 33. 

This is a list of all the achievements.

The one thing I haven't really worked on is my enchantment table room. I just haven't had enough time to get the leather to make book shelves. 

This is how you make bookshelves.

It takes a long time to make the books because leather can be hard to find. You need lots of bookshelves for enchantment table because the bookshelves give you better enchantments. 

This is how you make an enchantment table. 

I've recently gone to the nether to find a nether fortress. The reason I wanted to find a nether fortress is because that's where you find Blaze mobs. Blaze mobs are need to get blaze rods which are needed to make blaze powder, which are needed to make eyes of ender, which are needed to find a stronghold, which is needed to get to The End so I can fight the Enderdragon. Yeah, it's quite a process to go through. 

While I was going to find a nether fortress, Kyle went exploring. As he was exploring he found horses! Now for those who don't know, horses aren't very easy to find. They can only be found in certain biomes and at certain times. So finding horses was pretty exciting for us. The com thing about horses is that you can actually tame them and then your able to ride them around! 

Now with this passion project you need a mentor that is supposed to help you through your project. I haven't really said much about it because I haven't had a chance to go on Minecraft with my mentor. The mentor I chose was one of my teachers, Mr. Watson. The reason I chose him is because I feel like he would be a good person to teach me things I don't know about Minecraft. Such as teaching me about how to add mods to the server. Hopefully we are able to get Watson on soon and learn some new things about Minecraft. 

This is my area. I've finished my house and I'm pretty happy with it because it's not like I'm in my house all that much so I'm pretty happy with it. My bedroom also has a nice view of our whole area.

 My bedroom.

My horse. (and Kyle's horse in the background)

My horse barn.

My finished wheat, watermelon, sugar cane, and animal farm.

I think I've been making good progress so far! There isn't that much left to be done before me and Kyle are able to go fight the Enderdragon. I only have about 9 more achievements left that I need to get, which won't be very hard to do. Hopefully we will be able to finish pretty soon!

How Minecraft Works

Hey, 

I realize that some people reading these posts may not know how Minecraft fully works. In this blog post I'll explain how Minecraft fully works. 

Basically what you do in Minecraft is building. There are endless amounts of materials that you can build with. The main tool that you use is a crafting table. 

This is how you make a Crafting table. 

To get the wood to build a crafting table, you pretty much just go up to a tree and punch it until it breaks. 

There are numerous amounts of tools/weapons that you can build too with the crafting table. There are pickaxes, axes, swords, bow and arrows, hoes, shovels, sheers (big scissors), and flint and steel. You can also choose how you want to make these tools/weapons. You can make them out of wood, cobblestone, iron, gold and diamond which is very rare to find. To find these materials you have to dig in the ground. Each of the materials have a certain level in the ground that they usually spawn. Once you find the material that you want to use you get a pickaxe and mine it. When you've mined it you get a crafting table and make sticks for the handle of the tool/weapon. 

That's how you make sticks. 

Once you've made the sticks, you're ready to make your tool/weapon. Here's an example of how you make of a diamond sword. 

Once you've gotten the basics of how to mine materials and craft items it gets really easy to make really cool things. 

Here are some example of what you can make when you get really good at building. 

http://www.minecraftbuildingideas.com/2012/03/japanese-house.html

http://minecraftgallery.com/gallery/minecraft-library-building/

http://www.bubblews.com/news/view/1287529

I hope this helped whoever was wondering about the basics of Minecraft. I will update soon about the progress of my Passion Project. 

Finished October

Hey,

Man I haven't posted in a long time but I've gotten a lot done since my last post. I've gotten 14 achievements done. There are 30 in total so at this point I'm ahead of what I should be. I've also completely finished my house. Inside my house I've made a huge open living room area. When you go to the right there is a hallway with two doors. In one there is my chest room with all my resources that I've organized to find things easily. Then in the other door I have my bedroom with a huge window that looks at Kyle's house across from me. This is a view from the outside of the house. 

I've also gotten quite a bit of diamonds to make some tools with. I don't have enough diamonds to make diamond armour but I will still look for more to make some diamond armour. I've made a big garden that has lots of wheat, pumpkins, and watermelons. 

Kyle and I have also made a animal farm with chickens, sheep, cows, and pigs. 

At this point I feel like I've gotten lots done and me and Kyle seem to be ahead of what we thought we'd be at this point. I think that we'll be able to finish the game by the end of January. 

Passion Project

Hey! 

My name is Braden, and in my Bible class at school we are doing these projects called "Passion Project". The project is basically a project based on something you want to get better at. At the end of the project you want to beat a goal that you set at the beginning of the year. Throughout the semester you blog about what you've done every two weeks. 

My passion project is basically about Minecraft. My friend Kyle like playing Minecraft together, and we've both never beat the game. So we decided that this would be a good project idea.Throughout the semester we will be setting goals for each other to try and beat such as getting all the achievements or getting a certain amount of emeralds. At the end of the semester we will try and beat the Enderdragon (the end boss). I think this project will be a fun project!