CYBER CRAFT IMPRESSES
THIS year has been different to any other. In term 2, nearly everyone in Cairns was forced to quarantine indoors and school was moved from the classroom to the house.
That doesn’t mean that the schools just went quiet.
At the beginning of term 2, my school, Our Lady Help of Christians Primary School, posted an ad for the Cairns Minecraft Regional Building Competition on its Facebook page.
Since 2015, Cairns Minecraft has been holding competitions and workshops that help to promote children’s understanding of building, designing and even programming.
An impossible task, in a simple game, right? Well, you might be surprised.
In the 2015 Cairns Children’s Festival, it was decided that Minecraft would be an addition to the program.
Later that year, the project came into being with a real-life scale map of Cairns from the North Barron River to White Rock.
The map was set in the time before any roads or buildings were made and the only man-made structures on the map were the Tanks Art Centre and the Woven Fish Sculptures.
Project co-ordinator Mark Edwards worked with Cairns Regional Council botanist Tony Roberts on what Minecraft flora best fit Cairns.
Now in 2020, they’re bigger than ever, holding online workshops and building competitions, spreading over the entirety of Cairns.
From when the first server was launched in 2016 to now, Cairns Minecraft has grown to accommodate four separate Minecraft servers.
A server is basically a world in a game which everyone with the code can access.
Although 2020 has been full of ups and downs, Cairns Minecraft still managed to hold a building competition, starting in April.
There were two different servers, the JAVA (computer) server, and the Bedrock (console) server in different age groups.
Years 1-3, 4-6, 7-9 and 10-12 each had their different servers.
The build topic was a building from Cairns. Over three months, competitors designed and constructed replicas of Cairns structures.
You could build the Cairns Library, the Esplanade, the Cairns Convention Centre, and loads more.
Once the deadline was due, you stopped editing your building and the judges decided which ones would be going into the finals.
Twelve finalists were selected, and every finalist received a prize – a choice of Minecraft Bedrock, JAVA, or the new Minecraft Dungeons, a completely new game from Mojang.
The build for the finals was a quick one held online on Saturday, June 27.
In one hour, you had to build a replacement for the Fun Ship Playground, on the northern section of the Esplanade.
This was inspired by the real-life plan that the council has to upgrade the current playground.
The winner’s prize for my age group was a Samsung Galaxy Tablet, with a case and charger. From one competition, you could win either Minecraft Bedrock or JAVA or Dungeons, and a Samsung.
The best news was that the winner of the tournament was me.
When I entered the competition, I never thought I was going to win. I just entered to have fun.
The building I chose to construct was the Cairns Aquarium. Using websites like Google Earth, I tried my best to build the aquarium to scale.
After weeks of building, I finally finished the outside and began on the inside. Since the aquarium was closed to visitors due to COVID-19, I had to see the inside on the internet.
Despite searching Google,
YouTube, and countless other websites, I couldn’t find an online tour for the aquarium.
I was getting stressed since I wanted an inside to my build. So I went off memory and imagination to design the interior. Just days after I’d finished my long-term build, I was sent an email saying that I had made it to the finals.
I had lots of plans for how I was going to build the playground, but I kept changing my mind right up to the last minute.
Inspired by the Fig Tree Playground and the ropes course in the Cairns Zoom and Wildlife Dome, I created a personalised hybrid with climbing nets, slides, viewing points, barbecue areas, and even an outdoor library. In fact, in a later conversation with Mr Edwards, I was told that the library was the reason I had won.
Getting the news was incredible. I felt so happy. To know that all I had worked for had paid off in the end.
Cairns Minecraft will be hosting more competitions later this year.
Starting at the end of term 4 and carrying into 2021, there will be a building competition covering all of Queensland.
There will be a competition in each major region and the winners will face off to decide who is Queensland’s best builder.
Visit cairnsminecraft.com/minecraft for details to the Cairns Minecraft Hybrid server, so you can have fun across all platforms in its innovative combination of Bedrock and JAVA.
Just remember, I won this time, but next time, it could be you holding that prize.