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My son is 12 y/o, and he's into Minecraft. Yesterday he discovered the server mc.openredstone.org. He spent all day yesterday and about one hour today, and he

My son is 12 y/o, and he's into Minecraft. Yesterday he discovered the server mc.openredstone.org. He spent all day yesterday and about one hour today, and he ended up building a 4-bit adder. On this server players learn how to build logic gates, and mix them so they eventually build CPUs. It's fully gamified, so beginners are called "students" and more advanced players are called "builders". To become a "builder" you need to pass some trials. The "builders" probably have their own challenges (not sure, my son is still a student), in any case, they behave like teachers. So a student will find a builder who will give them instructions, and guide them through more and more complex designs. So, yesterday my son had no idea what XOR or NAND is, and today he already built a 4-bit adder, and has dreams of building an ALU. I'm quite excited to be honest. By the way, I'm not in any way connected with whomever put together this Minecraft server. I don't even think it's a for-profit thing, as far as I can tell, it's fully non-profit.

None4U 4y ago
- dopamean 4y ago
  What?
- AeroNotix 4y ago
  Immediately jumping to this kind of thinking completely ruins the will for people to get involved with these kinds of initiatives. OP didn't even hint that they thought this could be an issue but you did and now any discussion of people involved is tainted under the potential that they may be a pedophile.
- credit_guy 4y ago
  A little bit. I keep an eye on what he’s doing there, which is quite easy, as he just won’t stop talking about it. It’s also an opportunity for me to teach him, but in a way that he finds exciting. If one day I had decided to teach him XOR or NAND, he would’ve found it very boring. This way, he comes to me with questions, and I can pick up a piece of paper and show him what a truth table is, and he soaks it up. He feels like he’s cheating a bit at the game, because he has a Dad who helps him on the side, but no one knows, so he progresses very quickly and everyone thinks he’s very smart.
- mlyle 4y ago
  IMO, much better to progressively teach your kids about safety (online and off) and to do your best to monitor/keep track of what's going on, and ensure you have good lines of communication open with your kids and have them know that they can come to you without reprisal... than to try and keep them in a bubble and eliminate all possibility they could meet someone predatory.
earlyriser 4y ago
My kid has been into Minecraft for years, even before he had permission to play videogames. This year (he's 9) he started making 3d models and textures with Blockbench, and added them into his MCreator mod. It's a great gateway to learn stuff.
brailsafe 4y ago
I've been programming for 15 years and had to google what NAND was. Had a sense of XOR
- dpz 4y ago
  - anon84873628 4y ago
    The truth is that you can be a successful computer software developer and not need to know much at all about how computers work. Or even how things like compilers work. Some of us never even studied in a CS program - gasp!
    - SmellTheGlove 4y ago
      It’s all layers of abstraction, right? While it’s good to have a basic understanding of how the whole stack works, it’s also a feature and a goal of those building the lower levels to enable others to operate at higher levels independent of that knowledge. Taking this away from software for a second, I know a hell of a lot of people skilled in their professions that have no idea exactly how their cars work but they drive them just fine.
    - dpz 4y ago
      i also never studied CS but find it quite odd they didn't even stumble across them in 15 years
      - brailsafe 4y ago
        I've stumbled across and used them, but it never occurred to me to actually check what NAND stood for.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- groffee 4y ago
0xedd 4y ago
abrax3141 4y ago
Redstone is fun, and some people do amazing builds with it, but it gets tedious fast; like building your own computer from transistors - fun … once! :-) But Minecraft has an incredible amount of richness once you get into modding and command blocks (although it’s a shame that they don’t have a proper lua built in.) Speaking of which, there’s powder toy, which DOES have built in Lua.
- herewulf 4y ago
  Well, there's Minetest[1] if you want a voxel block game with Lua built in. [1]: https://www.minetest.net https://www.minetest.net
Akronymus 4y ago
mazbe this could be to your sons liking? https://nandgame.com/ https://nandgame.com/
- cben 4y ago
  also https://echa.itch.io/pocket-robots-test-chamber https://echa.itch.io/pocket-robots-test-chamber

None4U 4y ago

dopamean 4y ago
What?
AeroNotix 4y ago
Immediately jumping to this kind of thinking completely ruins the will for people to get involved with these kinds of initiatives. OP didn't even hint that they thought this could be an issue but you did and now any discussion of people involved is tainted under the potential that they may be a pedophile.
credit_guy 4y ago
A little bit. I keep an eye on what he’s doing there, which is quite easy, as he just won’t stop talking about it. It’s also an opportunity for me to teach him, but in a way that he finds exciting. If one day I had decided to teach him XOR or NAND, he would’ve found it very boring. This way, he comes to me with questions, and I can pick up a piece of paper and show him what a truth table is, and he soaks it up. He feels like he’s cheating a bit at the game, because he has a Dad who helps him on the side, but no one knows, so he progresses very quickly and everyone thinks he’s very smart.
mlyle 4y ago
IMO, much better to progressively teach your kids about safety (online and off) and to do your best to monitor/keep track of what's going on, and ensure you have good lines of communication open with your kids and have them know that they can come to you without reprisal... than to try and keep them in a bubble and eliminate all possibility they could meet someone predatory.

earlyriser 4y ago

My kid has been into Minecraft for years, even before he had permission to play videogames. This year (he's 9) he started making 3d models and textures with Blockbench, and added them into his MCreator mod. It's a great gateway to learn stuff.

brailsafe 4y ago

I've been programming for 15 years and had to google what NAND was. Had a sense of XOR

dpz 4y ago
- anon84873628 4y ago
  The truth is that you can be a successful computer software developer and not need to know much at all about how computers work. Or even how things like compilers work. Some of us never even studied in a CS program - gasp!
  - SmellTheGlove 4y ago
    It’s all layers of abstraction, right? While it’s good to have a basic understanding of how the whole stack works, it’s also a feature and a goal of those building the lower levels to enable others to operate at higher levels independent of that knowledge. Taking this away from software for a second, I know a hell of a lot of people skilled in their professions that have no idea exactly how their cars work but they drive them just fine.
  - dpz 4y ago
    i also never studied CS but find it quite odd they didn't even stumble across them in 15 years
    - brailsafe 4y ago
      I've stumbled across and used them, but it never occurred to me to actually check what NAND stood for.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
groffee 4y ago

0xedd 4y ago

abrax3141 4y ago

Redstone is fun, and some people do amazing builds with it, but it gets tedious fast; like building your own computer from transistors - fun … once! :-) But Minecraft has an incredible amount of richness once you get into modding and command blocks (although it’s a shame that they don’t have a proper lua built in.) Speaking of which, there’s powder toy, which DOES have built in Lua.

herewulf 4y ago
Well, there's Minetest[1] if you want a voxel block game with Lua built in. [1]: https://www.minetest.net https://www.minetest.net

Akronymus 4y ago

mazbe this could be to your sons liking? https://nandgame.com/ https://nandgame.com/

cben 4y ago
also https://echa.itch.io/pocket-robots-test-chamber https://echa.itch.io/pocket-robots-test-chamber