Thursday 12 January 2012

Thinking in 3 Dimensions is HARD!

After making note of how the students don't think in 3 dimensions when given the opportunity in December last year, today I have fallen for the same trap.

I was creating the first of my 3D tour maps, an animal cell and had to really concentrate on thinking in terms of a 3 dimensional shape instead of a flat model. It is really quite hard to do, normally I draw a cell on the board, so I have a pretty good idea of what a cross section should look like, but trying to translate that into a 3D model in Minecraft was more difficult than I thought.

That being said, as long as I kept reminding myself that I was building in a 3D environment and to stop thinking 'flat' I made pretty good progress, but it took me about half an hour to realise. So the first half hour of building was what I am going to call 'mapping out the cross section'. The following screenshot shows the first half an hour.


So this is the 'midline' of the cell, most are on a 2d plane, however some are dropped slightly lower than the others. I used the 'horizontal build mode' to build in mid air so that I didn't have to clear underneath.

After that half an hour I turned off the 'horizontal build mode' and solidified all the lines and then started fleshing out the nucleolus. The below screenshot shows the 3D nucleolus.


I also created one of the mitochondria, including cristae. I am concerned about lighting, but I figure if I light the path the students follow that might provide a fair bit of ambient light where needed. There is much more building to be done, but the other mitochondria just need to be 'shells' no cristae required as the students wont be walking through. As always thoughts, feedback and suggestions are welcomed in the comments. I also recorded the building so far, so keep an eye on my youtube channel if you would like to see that.

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