Ratios and gameplay

Students learn different ratio rules for a specific type of gameplay in Minecraft and ensure that their code abides by those rules.

Learning objectives

Understanding the importance of ratio as it applies to gameplay within Minecraft, and understanding how to refine ratio within a function.

Guiding ideas

Understand the concept of a ratio and use ratio language to describe a ratio relationship between two quantities.

Related Common Core math standards:

• CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.6.RP.A.1

Student activities

This activity requires students to have the Code Connection app open and running along with their Minecraft Education Edition.

This activity consists of 2 parts:

• Understanding Existing Ratios in Minecraft
• Defining Your Own Ratios in Minecraft

Existing Ratios in Minecraft

Lead a class discussion about ratios, focus on real-world examples such as 1 car has 4 wheels. Come up with a list of real-world examples on the board.

Have students explore their Minecraft world to discover ratios within Minecraft.

As an example: One fishing rod is made from 3 sticks and 2 strings.

Come up with a list of Minecraft ratio examples on the board.

Defining Your Own Ratios

Have students get into groups of 2 or 3 and create their own new ratios for Minecraft. Lead them through the following example first. The italicized text is what is told to students.

To make jumping more interesting, we’ve defined a new jump command that has a ratio of 1:5. For every 1 time jump is called, the player moves up 5 blocks:

player.onChat("jump", function () {
    player.teleport(pos(0, 5, 0))
})

Walk students through changing the 5 to other numbers and predicting what the ratio would be. Compare this jump command to the way the player jumps in Minecraft naturally (for each space bar press, there is a 1:1 ratio of number of blocks the player jumps).

You can even make a variable ratio, meaning whatever parameter number you put in, the player will jump that many blocks high:

player.onChat("jump", function (num1) {
    player.teleport(pos(0, num1, 0))
})

Walk students through the concept that there are two ratios here: 1:num1 for each time jump is called, the player will go up num1 of blocks. 1:1 the number that is passed in is exactly how many blocks the player will move up.

Ask students to define their own ratios using parameters and loops.

Performance Expectations

Intended outcomes:

• This exercise can be completed in one class session depending on the experience your students have with Minecraft and the amount of exploratory time given.
• Students should be able to recognize ratios in the real-world and game-worlds.
• Students should be able to make decisions on creating new ratio rules for real-world inventions or game-world gameplay.