Minecraft in Review

The other big program we had this month was Minecraft Madness. You may remember me discussing this a few weeks back as a future event... well it finally happened, and now we can visit it in review!

(Disclaimer: we were pretty neglectful in getting pictures. What we have is courtesy of a fellow staff member who came in at the very beginning--when we only had a handful of attendees--and me frantically taking pictures of things during the last 5 minutes. So you'll probably notice so repeat photos from the days leading up to the event. Sorry guys!)

Pretty home-made flier.

As I mentioned before, this program was the brainchild of my coworker and friend, Ashley. (Check out her blog, where she posts book reviews and discusses upcoming releases. Pretty cool stuff!) She's very much behind getting Minecraft in libraries and has even been advocating to get the PC version on our teen computers. The funny thing is... she's never played the game (besides a brief crash-course/training I gave her). Which is why I was pulled in to help out; which I had an absolute blast doing!

Take-home reminder cubes.

We decided to run Minecraft Madness arcade-style. Each station the kids visited was worth a ticket. Some (more complicated stations) earned them two tickets. They got to use their tickets toward a variety of prizes and books, or they could enter their tickets into a raffle for gift cards to Barns & Noble or Game Stop.

There was a station for them to make their own mini minecraft chests. A few of them got creative and made an ender chest... which I kind of wish I had planned for. But alas, I overlooked that particular update! All is well though; the kids made it work.

A well loved (read, "messy") chest-making station.

Ashley inspecting a chest. (Notice our spider decor?)

We also had a design station for them to make their own Steve skins or deign their own minecraft buildings using grid paper. I printed some suggestions for skins and a key of all the minecraft blocks since some of the kids, inevitably, were new to the game. In a way, this served as a learning space as well as a design station.

The next--arguably most popular--station was the perler bead station. I printed out all the different minecraft weapons and tools (ones that were simple enough to build with perlers) to serve as templates, and the kids got to make their own minecraft perler things! We had some venturous kids make their personalized Steve heads and some emeralds and diamonds too, but mostly they stuck with swords and bows. My job was to iron all the little perlers together (as well as mend some finished weapons that got snapped), so I was able to see all of their amazing creations.

Shovel in progress!

Finished tools (and their prize tickets) cooling after being fused.

The original idea was to turn them into key chains, but somewhere during setup I lost the jump rings! So instead, I sent the kids home with a key ring and instructions about how to attach it using things from home. Most of the parents were very understanding about this misstep, but I still feel bad.

Another station we had was a papercraft station. Here we had dozens of sheets of papercraft for the kids to make. If you made a cube papercraft (element blocks, slimes, pumpkins, etc.) you got one ticket. If you ventured to try making a mob or Steve papercraft, you could get two tickets! I saw a lot of cubes. We did find one Steve leg during clean up but we never found the rest of him; poor guy.

Making a tiny papercraft weapon.

There was also an option at the papercraft station to make a 6" paper torch. These were the perfect size for a single glow stick (which we provided) to fit inside of and light up, sort of like a real torch! I think just about everyone made one of those. In retrospect, I hope they didn't close up their torch with the glow stick inside, or that they snapped it before they did. Otherwise they're going to have to destroy their torch in order to make it glow. Oops!

Putting together some torches.

Our last--most amazing--station was the game itself. My husband and I (with some help from an awesome friend and coworker) spent 26+ hours outside of work building a world for the kids that had all the supplies they'd need, as well as a spawn house, and a number of mini games for them to compete in. I discussed before how this whole plan was nearly botched, so I won't address that again here; suffice to say that the first 30 minutes of the program were especially stressful.

Our troubleshooting team in deep contemplation.
Also... I'm dressed as Steve! (Sort of.)

The mini games included:

• A boat race, complete with glowstone lined tunnel
• An archery range (which I overheard the kids say was, "actually kind of hard")
• A version of King of the Ladder with a water pit for softer landings
• A caving race where the kids competed to find the hidden wool in a cave
• A player vs. player battle arena ringed in fire
• And... DEATH HOUSE!

I have to brag a little here, because death house is amazing. My husband built this masterpiece; It's three levels of intense zombie battle. When you enter death house you are immediately sealed in. You grab your gear and head in to level one where dispensers release a hoard of zombies for you to fight. Once they're defeated you enter the next hallway, grab more supplies (and golden apples), and head to level two: more zombies, less room to run. After level two you leave through a hallway of lava, grab more supplies and drop down a pit to enter level three: more zombies, even less room, obstacles, and lava! If you survive level three, you win and take the hugely long (level three is at bedrock) spiral staircase back to the surface. Meanwhile, death house resets itself and is ready for the next victim  player to enter.

Sorry, they're not in death house. They're searching caves for wool.

Once the kids got over their initial fear of death house it became the most popular mini game we made! I had more than one kid insisting that my husband should put the plans online so they could build their own death house. I'm so proud of my husband and his redstone skills! And there was a massive amount of that stuff wiring the whole thing, let me tell you!

Working our creative marketing muscles!

And that was our Minecraft Madness program, in a nutshell! The age-range was possibly the hardest I've ever worked with, but oh so rewarding! Pre-teens are quick to criticize and slow to listen, but when they like something they let you know beyond a shadow of a doubt; and this program was definitely a hit!