The tower shown below has a roof constructed from SeaLanterns which give off light. The shaft of the tower is constructed primarily from Prismarine blocks with a Glowstone ring running across the middle for lighting. A beacon has been placed on the floor of the tower which shines up through the center of the conical roof through a block of BlueGlass. The construction of the tower shown below involved the use of level-4 ring and cone functions. The code for this tower can be found here.
The giants shown below have shirts made of Gold blocks and skin made of Sandstone blocks. Note that Sand blocks could not have been used, since they would have fallen to the ground.
Shown below is the result of projecting a 2 dimensional pixel art image onto a sphere. Projection is discussed in level 5.
Below is a menagerie of artifacts created using Bricklayer. In the image, the USS Enterprise is flying through a rainbow, past the Sierpinski pyramid, and towards a giant rendition of R2D2.
The screenshot below shows the USS Enterprise orbiting Jupiter. Notice the shadow of both the Enterprise and Jupiter on the water. The Enterprise was constructed using level-4 ring, sphere, and line functions. The Enterprise is hollow and the saucer section as well as the engines are lined with Glowstone blocks. The bridge is constructed from a Glass sphere.
The Menger sponge in the screenshot shown below consists of 8000 blocks. Its dimensions are 27x27x27. The Menger sponge is a self-similar artifact, a fractal, which (in the limit) looks the same no matter how far or how close you are from it. A video showing a “fly through” of this Menger sponge can be found here.
The screenshot shown below contains a structure created using 8 “quarter spheres”. One way to create this structure is as follows. First, define a function that creates a soild sphere in terms of a sequence of layered hollow spheres. Use Bricklayer’s build function to declare a virtual space that is a cube. Then use the sphere function you created to build a sphere centered on each of the corners of the cube. Bricklayer’s clipping function will take care of the rest.
This structure is created by intersecting a hollow sphere with a structure consisting of slanted three dimensional planes. The result is a structure consisting of slanted rings. (Notice that behind the structure you see a tower surrounded by a moat of lava. Also note that to the left you can see a portion of a Wunderlich curve.)
Wunderlich curves are space filling curves. They are introduced as a special project in level 3. A basic version of the curve shown below can be seen here. The Minecraft version of this curve consists of a waterway 2 blocks wide lined with sugar canes which, in turn, are bordered by Glowstone blocks.
The original goal of the wunderlich curve shown in the previous screenshot was to create a waterway where a boat could navigate along the curve. Unfortunately, boats are very fragile so this did not work out too well. Boats would oftentimes break when turning corners. Our next idea was to create a similar curve, but this time using powered rails, rails, and redstone torches. This worked out wonderfully. A video showing a minecart traveling the curve can be seen here.
The screenshot shown below a variation of a binary tree, which is an extremely important data structure in computer science.
The screenshot below shows the interior of the top of a Wizard’s Tower. The roof is constructed from Redstone and Glowstone. This room is accessible through a spiral staircase. Note that the well of the staircase is surrouned by a wooden banister atop of which torches have been placed. A video showing the tower can seen here.
