"Coding Mars" Project
In the News!
Our school Communications team (MARCOMM) has shared articles and media about our project:
YouTube: Middle School Coding Class Simulates Mars Colony (4 Jan 2024)
Middle Schoolers Code Their Way to the Red Planet (17 Dec 2024 - also shared on Instagram and Facebook)
Project Subpages include:
Minecraft Mars Files (seeds / downloadable worlds)
NCMLE 2025 Presentation Resources
These are the slides (with embedded videos and embedded links) for my March 25, 2025 presentation at 2025 NCMLE Middle School Matters Conference, "Coding Mars with Minecraft Makecode and Scratch."
The audio recording from this presentation is available on YouTube.
SPACE 2024 Presentation Resources
These are the slides (with embedded videos and embedded links) for my June 26, 2024 presentation at the Kennedy Space Center, "Minecraft Makecode meets Mark Watney and Mars Colonization."
Direct links include:
Scratch Animation Projects (Padlet)
Minecraft Screencasts 2023-24 (Padlet)
My completed / shared Spring 2024 Canvas Course. Example lessons:
Our middle school computer programming class is building a virtual OUTPOST on Mars, using robots and Microsoft MakeCode programs we're creating in Minecraft Education Edition. This is the website our teacher (Dr. Fryer) is using to share resources, links and videos related to this project. Current resources include:
Our project vision and visualizations: "Visualizing Our Mars Colony"
Minecraft Mars Files (links and tutorials)
We also have collected some Mars and Space Related Sprites / Graphics from Canva.com.
Visions of a Mars Base / Colony
(Drawn with help from ChatGPT-4 DAL-E 3. Documentation is available, along with more AI tips and experiments!)
The initial coding demo sequence / robot build was in a Minecraft Education world using seed 128388. (Photos are available!)
Protective Dome Update
Yesterday (15 Nov 2023) our class created an initial draft of our Mars Colony base, and started identifying coordinates in our "Mars Seed World" (128388) for the different buildings we are going to construct. With help from ChatGPT 4, we calculated the needed radius for our base, using the coordinates of the center / origin as well as points on the "outer circle" of the base. We're creating a 78 block radius "protective dome" of glass around the base / Mars Colony. Next steps will be identifying the location (by Minecraft Coordinates) of the different structures our 7 different student teams will build.
Lessons Learned and Questions
Here are some of the lessons we've learned so far (as of October 11, 2023) building and farming with Microsoft MakeCode in Minecraft Education. (Also available as a slideshow)
27 October 2023
11 October 2023
Share Our Project!
Please SHARE our project with others who might be interested in replicating / remixing these lessons!
Short link: bit.ly/codingmars
Our middle school coding course focuses on developing student computational thinking and coding skills using two "block based" programming environments. We start interactive programming using Scratch, an innovative graphical programming language developed at The Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Students also use Minecraft MakeCode for Minecraft Education, by Microsoft...
Other Links
2018-19 Minecraft Mars Project (Sway Presentation by Symbol C. Febellon)