Has your kid hit a wall with Minecraft, believing they know everything there is to know about the game? Uh… think again because there’s now James Floyd Kelly’s new book, Digital Engineering with Minecraft.
With step-by-step instructions, you can learn how to incorporate 3D modeling into Minecraft. And why would you want to do that? Because it can help you make complex buildings in Minecraft much faster than if you do them brick by brick.
Let’s say you wanted to build a castle. In fact, you start the book learning how to build a castle. If you build it in Minecraft Creative Mode, you will need to place each individual block, which can take many hours. Whereas Kelly’s book teaches you how to use 3D modeling software such as Tinkercad to make the very same castle in a quarter of the time.
You’ll learn how to do 3D modeling and import those models into Minecraft, make mazes to bring into the game, and even take creations from your real world and incorporate them into the Minecraft world. Moreover, you’ll learn valuable 3D modeling skills that can be applied beyond Minecraft, so what begins as play ends up being practice towards building 3D objects on the computer.
My son loves the book because it’s very easy to follow the detailed instructions. He was able to hop on the computer, download a few additional programs, and get started immediately. He also loves this idea because if his world is ever “griefed,” he can store copies of his 3D generated buildings elsewhere on the computer and import them again into Minecraft: instant rebuild.
Kelly’s book moves kids from being Minecraft players into Minecraft engineers, and he teaches them how to stretch their imagination to look at the Minecraft landscape as a blank canvas on which to creatively problem-solve and build.
This book is a great tool for anyone looking to try their hand in 3D modeling; after all, having a specific project to do is the perfect way to learn. And Minecraft is an excellent springboard to get your started.
Get a copy now and you’ll be set for winter break: it’s the perfect project-based book that will keep kids learning even when they’re off from school.
Note: I was sent a review copy of the book, but all opinions on the book are my own.
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