7 ms·

Minecraft Modding Software To Teach Kids Coding

88 points by jcr 12y ago

ajbetteridge 12y ago
This looks like something my kids would love. I've been trying to teach them Python over the last few weeks, with marginal success, sometimes to do with my time restrictions, but also their lack of motivation at the length of time it takes for them to see results. This looks like it could remedy that.
- Methusalah 12y ago
  Why python? There are far more straightforward languages to learn with more beginner-friendly development environments. Seems like an unnecessarily frustrating place to begin.
  - parennoob 12y ago
    What are some examples? I'd like to teach some people I know the basic concepts of programming, and I was thinking of starting with Python. I'd like to hear of some languages that have more beginner-friendly environments.
    - Methusalah 12y ago
      I'd go with C#.
    - niels_olson 12y ago
      Turtle/logo, squeak/smalltalk. This minecraft mod is learntomod/JavaScript. There's pippy for Python.
    - innguest 12y ago
      Scratch: http://scratch.mit.edu/ http://scratch.mit.edu/
- kgwgk 12y ago
  You might like this book: http://www.stuffaboutcode.com/2014/11/adventures-in-minecraft.html http://www.stuffaboutcode.com/2014/11/adventures-in-minecraf...
  - caoilte 12y ago
    Currently working through this with a couple of 7yr olds. It's pretty good.
- IndianAstronaut 12y ago
  >motivation at the length of time it takes for them to see results This is why I think javascript should be a first language. Kids can see the results on a web page right away.
- slackpad 12y ago
  I agree it's really tough to motivate kids to make games and program when they have massive instant libraries of high quality stuff online. My supply of good software was so limited growing up that it was easy to stay focused and build things. Now it's really hard to motivate kids with starter graphics programs and little interactive things. Hopefully the Minecraft tie-in will help overcome this. I'll give this a try with my 9 year old.
malkia 12y ago
My son loves Minecraft, but why the price of $30/year - I won't mind paying $50 for a package that could be used forever.
- Methusalah 12y ago
  I kind of lost interest at that point. I'm not interested in managing another subscription for this. Edit: It looks like it includes a hosted server. That makes more sense, but I'd prefer an option without it.
  - malkia 12y ago
    I preordered it just now - seems like a server is more in the line of paying over period rather than boxed package.
  - TruthSHIFT 12y ago
    It looks like it requires a special modded version of minecraft running on the server. I wonder if they have plans to release or sell the server code.
    - bphogan 12y ago
      All of these third-parry mod systems require a modified version. Bukkit did, and so does CanaryMod. Right now there's no official way to do modding so I suspect that this is their issue. And not releasing it allows them to generate a little revenue. For $30 a year? Sure, why not.
      - MarcScott 12y ago
        I'd love to see Microsoft fix this, and create a well documented modding API.
        bphogan 12y ago
        I'd like to just see them fold in one of the existing ones myself :)
russnewcomer 12y ago
I learned how to 'program' so I could write animation scripts for Total Annihilation mods when I was 13-14. I had always liked computers and my parents had tried to get me programming books for kids from the library, but I never made it far enough to do anything worthwhile for the time investment. Making my own 3d models and then getting them to walk, wings to open, turrets to track enemies, etc, was the motivation I needed. This seems to be a similarly excellent gateway for today's Minecraft obsessed kids in a way that modding many modern games (with their much greater complexity and knowledge base required) can't offer. Kudos to all at UCSD, and hoping we see more similar initiatives in the future.
quesera 12y ago
Terribly written and edited PRWeb article. The real site is http://www.learntomod.com/ http://www.learntomod.com/
- LiweiZ 12y ago
  Yeah. They even use incorrect year: San Diego, Calif., December 17, 2004.
iwwr 12y ago
There is a feeling among the modding community of maintaining complexity hoops to keep newbies out. It could just be a lack of patience.
- gizmo686 12y ago
  Where do you see this? I have done some modding for minecraft. There is defiantly some complexity hoops, but those seem to stem from the fact that the community is trying to make mutually compatible mods to a closed-source game under continuous development.
danso 12y ago
Kids have it real nice these days...games that are fun and can teach you how to code concurrently (Hack 'n Slash is another example). I was able to pick up programming fairly easy as I got older though, because I learned how to be comfortable with text files and hack around the internals of an operating system...which is what I had to do to get Ultima VII to run via its awful Voodoo memory manager.
pearjuice 12y ago
I am sorry but what is with the attempt to get everyone and their petfish to learn how to code? From everywhere and nowhere initiatives and organizations pop up to teach X demography or Y culture to learn how to code. For what purpose? Just because all the big investment money and SV hype everybody wants to get some piece of the cake? Because we are facing a massive lack in programmers? Or does it actually have a purpose? I mean there are hundreds of professions and skills which are more life critical and/or meaningful than knowing how to write code and could actually improve society if the same effort and resources were put into it as that currently is being put in getting everyone to code. Don't get me wrong, computers are more important than ever but does that mean everybody should be able to program one?
- falcor84 12y ago
  I tend to agree with this widespread statement of "coding is the new literacy". I don't think that everybody should make programming their life's work, just like not everyone is earning their daily bread by writing. But given that quite about everything around us is programmable, someone who has no concept at all of how programming works could be left behind.
  - bvanslyke 12y ago
    I don't see how they would be left behind, unless you mean being left out of the job market for software engineers. And that isn't enough reason to say everyone should code. It doesn't seem to me like it's comparable to literacy at all. While I need to be literate to use anything that was written in English, I don't need to take CS101 to use anything that was written in code. e: And while it's useful to produce written English all the time, we would have to be living in a crazy universe for it to be worth it for the average person to need to produce code.
- jvagner 12y ago
  I, for one, have no inclination to push my 10 year Minecraft- obsessed son to code. If he wants to, that's fine and I'll support it. But he loves skiing and backpacking and architecture just as much. I'm probably biased against coding, being an IT/software guy for the last 20 years.
ryandvm 12y ago
As a middle-schooler I tinkered with QBASIC and Pascal trying to teach myself programming. I never really accomplished much. I tried learning C, but it was way over my head at the time. Then id Software released Quake and the modding engine used "QuakeC". It was basically just a stripped down, interpreted version of C, but it was enough motivation for me to finally wrap my head around C. I can't imagine how many kids have taught themselves entry-level programming skills by futzing around creating Minecraft mods.
- naner 12y ago
  My first foray into programming was also QuakeC, though I didn't really think of it as programming at the time. I lived in a rural area with very poor network access so I actually got most of the QuakeC tooling and mods from CDs purchased at the mall. Since Internet access was so spotty my primary hobby was to take bot mods and combine them with weapon mods I liked so I could play deathmatch against bots with a grappling hook or self-guided missiles, etc.
Houshalter 12y ago
This is cool because it's not just a mod of minecraft, but actually teaches you how to mod minecraft. Another cool minecraft mod is ComputerCraft which lets you make simple robots and computers in the game, which you can program in Lua. A lot of people have been exposed to programming through that, and it's really fun.
amccloud 12y ago
Quite a few people I know started coding because of gaming. I started when modding and building forums for Halo.
altcognito 12y ago
Everyone has some good suggestions... Scriptcraft is nice, it works along the lines of logo, teaching basic principals: http://scriptcraftjs.org/ http://scriptcraftjs.org/
rilita 12y ago
Do we need more kids learning to create scripts on top of APIs without any fundamental understanding of computers in general?
- a3n 12y ago
  Yes. And some of those will go on to learn those fundamentals, and possibly discover new fundamentals.
MarcScott 12y ago
I see Minecraft modding as the gateway drug for my son, into coding. He loves Minecraft on his tablet, and with BlockLauncher we can code mods in JavaScript for his Android tablet. The modding community seems a little impenetrable however, and trying to find any documentation for the Blocklauncher API has been a stumbling block. We'll persevere however, and make sure all the code we write is on GitHub and well commented.
- biafra 12y ago
  Is this the documentation you were looking for? https://github.com/Connor4898/ModPE-Scripts/wiki/ModPE-Scripts-Functions-List https://github.com/Connor4898/ModPE-Scripts/wiki/ModPE-Scrip...
_jomo 12y ago
Are there some technical details? The news article states that "Students can even create custom blocks and items within Minecraft by importing new textures" which would require a client side modification and can't be done by importing textures. The actual website says that you modify the server which doesn't allow as many modifications. There are some bigger cuatomizable server mods around already (hMod, bukkit, spigot, glowstone, sponge, ...). Does this use any of these servers and their API? If so, does this use one of the existing JavaScript plugins or are they using their own wrapper for the server's API?
- walterh 12y ago
  As far as I know they are using ScriptCraft which is a Mod for CraftBukkit and CanaryMod which lets you create mods in Javascript. [disclosure: I maintain ScriptCraft] https://github.com/walterhiggins/ScriptCraft/ https://github.com/walterhiggins/ScriptCraft/
  - _jomo 12y ago
    Hmm, I find $120/year (after official release) quite a high price for what seems to be different open source software and a 4 slot server packed together.
- 0942v8653 12y ago
  Minecraft has "resource packs" that change the image and label of items. When the client joins, the server can specify a resource pack for it to download.
  - _jomo 12y ago
    Exactly. You can change items labels and looks but you cannot "create" items.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
bcl 12y ago
It would be even nicer if the mainline version of Minecraft would adopt the Python API they implemented for the Pi edition.
hrjet 12y ago
I am not into gaming/modding/minecraft, but just wanted to share a project I came across: https://github.com/MovingBlocks/Terasology https://github.com/MovingBlocks/Terasology It's an open-source minecraft-clone designed in a very modular way; many game components are just modules and players can easily add their own. I haven't actually tried modding, so no idea how easy it is. But this seems like a better project to build upon, since it is explicitly designed that way.
shmerl 12y ago
Should it be better developed for Minetest? Seems more fitting for the educational effort, since it doesn't attach a price tag for entry.

88 points by jcr 12y ago

This looks like something my kids would love. I've been trying to teach them Python over the last few weeks, with marginal success, sometimes to do with my time restrictions, but also their lack of motivation at the length of time it takes for them to see results. This looks like it could remedy that.

Methusalah 12y ago
Why python? There are far more straightforward languages to learn with more beginner-friendly development environments. Seems like an unnecessarily frustrating place to begin.
- parennoob 12y ago
  What are some examples? I'd like to teach some people I know the basic concepts of programming, and I was thinking of starting with Python. I'd like to hear of some languages that have more beginner-friendly environments.
  - Methusalah 12y ago
    I'd go with C#.
  - niels_olson 12y ago
    Turtle/logo, squeak/smalltalk. This minecraft mod is learntomod/JavaScript. There's pippy for Python.
  - innguest 12y ago
    Scratch: http://scratch.mit.edu/ http://scratch.mit.edu/
kgwgk 12y ago
You might like this book: http://www.stuffaboutcode.com/2014/11/adventures-in-minecraft.html http://www.stuffaboutcode.com/2014/11/adventures-in-minecraf...
- caoilte 12y ago
  Currently working through this with a couple of 7yr olds. It's pretty good.
IndianAstronaut 12y ago
>motivation at the length of time it takes for them to see results This is why I think javascript should be a first language. Kids can see the results on a web page right away.
slackpad 12y ago
I agree it's really tough to motivate kids to make games and program when they have massive instant libraries of high quality stuff online. My supply of good software was so limited growing up that it was easy to stay focused and build things. Now it's really hard to motivate kids with starter graphics programs and little interactive things. Hopefully the Minecraft tie-in will help overcome this. I'll give this a try with my 9 year old.

malkia 12y ago

My son loves Minecraft, but why the price of $30/year - I won't mind paying $50 for a package that could be used forever.

Methusalah 12y ago
I kind of lost interest at that point. I'm not interested in managing another subscription for this. Edit: It looks like it includes a hosted server. That makes more sense, but I'd prefer an option without it.
- malkia 12y ago
  I preordered it just now - seems like a server is more in the line of paying over period rather than boxed package.
- TruthSHIFT 12y ago
  It looks like it requires a special modded version of minecraft running on the server. I wonder if they have plans to release or sell the server code.
  - bphogan 12y ago
    All of these third-parry mod systems require a modified version. Bukkit did, and so does CanaryMod. Right now there's no official way to do modding so I suspect that this is their issue. And not releasing it allows them to generate a little revenue. For $30 a year? Sure, why not.
    - MarcScott 12y ago
      I'd love to see Microsoft fix this, and create a well documented modding API.
      - bphogan 12y ago
        I'd like to just see them fold in one of the existing ones myself :)

russnewcomer 12y ago

I learned how to 'program' so I could write animation scripts for Total Annihilation mods when I was 13-14. I had always liked computers and my parents had tried to get me programming books for kids from the library, but I never made it far enough to do anything worthwhile for the time investment. Making my own 3d models and then getting them to walk, wings to open, turrets to track enemies, etc, was the motivation I needed. This seems to be a similarly excellent gateway for today's Minecraft obsessed kids in a way that modding many modern games (with their much greater complexity and knowledge base required) can't offer. Kudos to all at UCSD, and hoping we see more similar initiatives in the future.

quesera 12y ago

Terribly written and edited PRWeb article. The real site is http://www.learntomod.com/ http://www.learntomod.com/

LiweiZ 12y ago
Yeah. They even use incorrect year: San Diego, Calif., December 17, 2004.

iwwr 12y ago

There is a feeling among the modding community of maintaining complexity hoops to keep newbies out. It could just be a lack of patience.

gizmo686 12y ago
Where do you see this? I have done some modding for minecraft. There is defiantly some complexity hoops, but those seem to stem from the fact that the community is trying to make mutually compatible mods to a closed-source game under continuous development.

danso 12y ago

Kids have it real nice these days...games that are fun and can teach you how to code concurrently (Hack 'n Slash is another example). I was able to pick up programming fairly easy as I got older though, because I learned how to be comfortable with text files and hack around the internals of an operating system...which is what I had to do to get Ultima VII to run via its awful Voodoo memory manager.

pearjuice 12y ago

I am sorry but what is with the attempt to get everyone and their petfish to learn how to code? From everywhere and nowhere initiatives and organizations pop up to teach X demography or Y culture to learn how to code. For what purpose? Just because all the big investment money and SV hype everybody wants to get some piece of the cake? Because we are facing a massive lack in programmers? Or does it actually have a purpose? I mean there are hundreds of professions and skills which are more life critical and/or meaningful than knowing how to write code and could actually improve society if the same effort and resources were put into it as that currently is being put in getting everyone to code. Don't get me wrong, computers are more important than ever but does that mean everybody should be able to program one?

falcor84 12y ago
I tend to agree with this widespread statement of "coding is the new literacy". I don't think that everybody should make programming their life's work, just like not everyone is earning their daily bread by writing. But given that quite about everything around us is programmable, someone who has no concept at all of how programming works could be left behind.
- bvanslyke 12y ago
  I don't see how they would be left behind, unless you mean being left out of the job market for software engineers. And that isn't enough reason to say everyone should code. It doesn't seem to me like it's comparable to literacy at all. While I need to be literate to use anything that was written in English, I don't need to take CS101 to use anything that was written in code. e: And while it's useful to produce written English all the time, we would have to be living in a crazy universe for it to be worth it for the average person to need to produce code.
jvagner 12y ago
I, for one, have no inclination to push my 10 year Minecraft- obsessed son to code. If he wants to, that's fine and I'll support it. But he loves skiing and backpacking and architecture just as much. I'm probably biased against coding, being an IT/software guy for the last 20 years.

ryandvm 12y ago

As a middle-schooler I tinkered with QBASIC and Pascal trying to teach myself programming. I never really accomplished much. I tried learning C, but it was way over my head at the time. Then id Software released Quake and the modding engine used "QuakeC". It was basically just a stripped down, interpreted version of C, but it was enough motivation for me to finally wrap my head around C. I can't imagine how many kids have taught themselves entry-level programming skills by futzing around creating Minecraft mods.

naner 12y ago
My first foray into programming was also QuakeC, though I didn't really think of it as programming at the time. I lived in a rural area with very poor network access so I actually got most of the QuakeC tooling and mods from CDs purchased at the mall. Since Internet access was so spotty my primary hobby was to take bot mods and combine them with weapon mods I liked so I could play deathmatch against bots with a grappling hook or self-guided missiles, etc.

Houshalter 12y ago

This is cool because it's not just a mod of minecraft, but actually teaches you how to mod minecraft. Another cool minecraft mod is ComputerCraft which lets you make simple robots and computers in the game, which you can program in Lua. A lot of people have been exposed to programming through that, and it's really fun.

amccloud 12y ago

Quite a few people I know started coding because of gaming. I started when modding and building forums for Halo.

altcognito 12y ago

Everyone has some good suggestions... Scriptcraft is nice, it works along the lines of logo, teaching basic principals: http://scriptcraftjs.org/ http://scriptcraftjs.org/

rilita 12y ago

Do we need more kids learning to create scripts on top of APIs without any fundamental understanding of computers in general?

a3n 12y ago
Yes. And some of those will go on to learn those fundamentals, and possibly discover new fundamentals.

MarcScott 12y ago

I see Minecraft modding as the gateway drug for my son, into coding. He loves Minecraft on his tablet, and with BlockLauncher we can code mods in JavaScript for his Android tablet. The modding community seems a little impenetrable however, and trying to find any documentation for the Blocklauncher API has been a stumbling block. We'll persevere however, and make sure all the code we write is on GitHub and well commented.

biafra 12y ago
Is this the documentation you were looking for? https://github.com/Connor4898/ModPE-Scripts/wiki/ModPE-Scripts-Functions-List https://github.com/Connor4898/ModPE-Scripts/wiki/ModPE-Scrip...

_jomo 12y ago

Are there some technical details? The news article states that "Students can even create custom blocks and items within Minecraft by importing new textures" which would require a client side modification and can't be done by importing textures. The actual website says that you modify the server which doesn't allow as many modifications. There are some bigger cuatomizable server mods around already (hMod, bukkit, spigot, glowstone, sponge, ...). Does this use any of these servers and their API? If so, does this use one of the existing JavaScript plugins or are they using their own wrapper for the server's API?

walterh 12y ago
As far as I know they are using ScriptCraft which is a Mod for CraftBukkit and CanaryMod which lets you create mods in Javascript. [disclosure: I maintain ScriptCraft] https://github.com/walterhiggins/ScriptCraft/ https://github.com/walterhiggins/ScriptCraft/
- _jomo 12y ago
  Hmm, I find $120/year (after official release) quite a high price for what seems to be different open source software and a 4 slot server packed together.
0942v8653 12y ago
Minecraft has "resource packs" that change the image and label of items. When the client joins, the server can specify a resource pack for it to download.
- _jomo 12y ago
  Exactly. You can change items labels and looks but you cannot "create" items.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

bcl 12y ago

It would be even nicer if the mainline version of Minecraft would adopt the Python API they implemented for the Pi edition.

hrjet 12y ago

I am not into gaming/modding/minecraft, but just wanted to share a project I came across: https://github.com/MovingBlocks/Terasology https://github.com/MovingBlocks/Terasology It's an open-source minecraft-clone designed in a very modular way; many game components are just modules and players can easily add their own. I haven't actually tried modding, so no idea how easy it is. But this seems like a better project to build upon, since it is explicitly designed that way.

shmerl 12y ago

Should it be better developed for Minetest? Seems more fitting for the educational effort, since it doesn't attach a price tag for entry.