Activity

Minecraft: the game of makers

by Samantha Jamison

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Students in Assistant Professor B. Reeja Jayan’s advanced engineering course learned the principles of materials science by playing Minecraft, instead of in a lecture-based environment.

Instead of learning the principles of materials science in a traditional lecture-based environment, students in Assistant Professor B. Reeja Jayan’s upper-level engineering course mastered their principles in a context that was based on games playing Minecraft, a computer-based game that lets players build worlds out of virtual blocks.

Jayan “fills the gaps” for students studying mechanical engineering who aren’t at all familiar with the science of materials through her special topics course Materials and Their Processing for Mechanical Engineers.

“Materials science is usually an area that mechanical engineers aren’t completely exposed to,” says Jayan. “This new course teaches students how materials have particular internal arrangements of atoms , and how processing techniques can change this structure , resulting in differences in properties like mechanical behavior and strength.”

Minecraft has enabled me to understand the science behind materials in a very tangible way.

Jayan says that mechanical engineers need to understand how the processing and properties of materials impact atomic structures in order to appreciate mechanical science and the design of materials. What about Jayan utilized a game-based teaching method to ensure that her students still had a hands on learning experience despite traditional lab classes being difficult to arrange due to safety hazards and equipment shortages or insufficient staff.

“When you create materials, it’s similar to building things,” says Jayan. “Minecraft is a maker’s games. You can build anything. There are certain modules in the game that will help players recognize the characteristics of the materials they construct with. I was trying to apply this culture of building to help students conceptualize concepts and consider what it was that they were building and how they would perform it in a real-world scenario.”

Minecraft appeals to a wide player base because it allows players to customize their experience of playing in an open-world “sandbox” environment. Unlike a game that is created in a linear fashion (where players are able to move smoothly from one checkpoint to the next), Minecraft encourages players to wander, explore and interact with their environment, making use of tools and materials to modify and change their surroundings. In Minecraft, players creatively solve problems they encounter when creating their own structures.

Students complete a final Minecraft project at the end of the semester by designing their own rooms and games on the server for classrooms. Students are challenged to create unique projects that demonstrate the fundamentals of materials science in a fun manner. Students created games last semester that required players to create materials using the latest materials processing and synthesis techniques. Others made crystal-based museums as well as replicas of steelmaking factories. When they complete these highly technical projects, students have an chance to understand the fundamental principles of the material science field.

@b_reeja’s Minecraft course lets students show their projects to middle school students. @CMUEngineering pic.twitter.com/0BGk7kBhyj

Genevieve Parker, MechE junior says that “Minecraft has helped me understand materials science and in a very tangible way.” I was awed by the ability to explore the model and observe the content in three dimensions. It’s hard to beat the interaction that is part of a Minecraft classroom. The ability to build and think creatively in assignments for homework and our project motivated me to learn and kept me interested when I was working.”

While some high school teachers have begun using Minecraft in their classrooms, few college professors have integrated the game into their own curriculum.

Jayan says there are no other instances of Minecraft being used at a university levels other than the University of Texas–Dallas , or CMU. “The most significant difference between us and the other universities is that Minecraft has never been fully integrated into an engineering course.”