Minecraft Education – Lesson 2

Objectives

• Understand why loops are useful in programming.
• Use for loops to repeat actions in Minecraft.
• Build simple patterns (lines and walls) using Python loops.

Vocabulary

• Loop – Repeats a block of code multiple times.
• Iteration – One repetition of a loop.

Part A – Basic Loop with player.say

Instead of copying the same line over and over, we can use a loop to repeat it.

Sample Code:

for i in range(5):
    player.say("This is message number " + str(i))

Discussion:

• range(5) means the loop runs 5 times: 0, 1, 2, 3, 4.
• i is the loop variable that changes each time.

Part B – Building a Line of Blocks

Let’s build a straight line of blocks in front of the player.

Sample Code:

# Build a line of 10 stone blocks along the X-axis
for x in range(10):
    blocks.place(STONE, pos(x, 0, 0))

Try:

• Change the block type (e.g., PLANKS_OAK, GLASS).
• Build a line along the Z-axis instead of X (change pos(x, 0, 0) to pos(0, 0, z)).
• Increase the length to 20 blocks.

Part C – Building a Simple Wall (Nested Loops)

This example uses a loop inside a loop (nested loops) to build a wall.

Sample Code:

# Build a 10x3 wall (10 wide, 3 high)
for x in range(10):      # width
    for y in range(3):   # height
        blocks.place(BRICKS, pos(x, y, 0))

Discussion:

• The outer loop controls the width (x-direction).
• The inner loop controls the height (y-direction).

Extension Challenge

Modify the wall to create a doorway by skipping some blocks in the middle.

Hint: Use an if statement inside the loop, for example:

for x in range(10):
    for y in range(3):
        # Skip blocks at the center (doorway)
        if not (x == 4 or x == 5) or y > 1:
            blocks.place(BRICKS, pos(x, y, 0))

Submit it to Google Classroom.
Save your file as PX_L02_lastname.png.