***Code Builder Mega Thread***
Bringing Computer science to students and educators is a key part of our mission!
Please use this thread to discuss all things coding within Minecraft: Education Edition:
- Lessons
- Bugs
- Suggestions
- Successes
- Other
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Hi Kyle
I think the Code Builder has great potential, if there were less obstacles to students continuing their work the following lesson. The fact that students have to save their MakeCode URL and copy and paste it each time can be an obstacle for my Primary School age students.
If there was some way for each students account to keep the Code saved in their account, that would encourage teachers to plan whole units of work to, for example, program a mini-game.
This ability to easily save and retrieve code would revolutionise the use of Code Builder. It is a great coding language and a great way to enthuse students to want to code.
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I completely agree with you Thomas
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Some things my class and I have needed but have been unable to do:
We need access to more event handlers e.g. "on jump" or "on swing of weapon (not just hit)"
Access slash commands from code
more global world variables like weather state e.g if (raining(boolean)) or contain the current weather in a string
HUD option e.g the ability to display the score on screen and not have to use "say" and have it disappear after a few seconds.
formal parameters on functions
create mobs as objects and access their state and give them behaviors like the agent.
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Bugs:
Makecode projects have been disappearing seemingly at random from student's computers. This makes it so that myself and my students cannot rely on our projects for grades and it becomes very disheartening and frustrating when a student loses all their progress on a coding project.
Code sometimes fails to execute, restarting the program usually fixes it.
Some students are unable to load code builder entirely, once again seemingly at random. It hangs at the agent icon screen and does not progress further.
Feature requests:
Being able to set a variable to a boolean type.
A variable that takes the player's angle orientation (facing direction) into account.
Code that can be designated to run for other players on your server. Currently the only way to do this is to give other players each a separate copy of a makecode project and give all of them operator status.
Parameter variables for functions (chat commands have them, why not functions?)
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You can create boolean variables, just "set variable to" True/False (logic block) after creating it.
I agree with the rest, especially the parameters on functions..
Also teleporting the agent to a specific location without changing its orientation would be useful or setting the orientation using a number, as returned by the "agent orientation" block.
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I have noticed the same problem as Kyle Yount with disappearing code projects. is there any solution?
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Hi everyone,
Thank you for all your comments!
In regards to the projects disappearing, please provide more details so that I can reach to MakeCode team and escalate the issue. Any details will be useful to know.
In the meantime I would recommend "publishing" the projects and having them available either as files or weblinks.
Please let me know if this solution works for you.
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Hi! I'm started from the Code Builder Tutorial and would like to have the opportunity to reset Challenge 5 and 6 blocks, since when trying it could happen to make mistakes.
I've made a proof of concept map that you can try, next to each challenge you'll find a small poster and a button to press and restore the blocks on challenge 5 or challenge 6 area: https://drive.google.com/file/d/16T32WhxLGXCtuCZ9Vx-QoV0fRThft-MJ/view?usp=sharing
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Hi Giulio,
Thank you very much for sharing this map! I tried it and it works great. I heard the feedback about reset button for coding pretty consistenly. Thank you for acting on it. I will share your map with Cole (our game designer) today. He was the one who designed this level. I will also make sure that we will update this map in the library.
Best
Maria
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Thank you for your comment! I understood that you would like for students to be able to save their code between the sessions. Now this exists but you have to use the same PC for it to happen. We also are working on fixing the issue "saved coding projects are getting lost". I am just trying to understand the request: you would like the code to be saved between the sessions in the shared PCs scenarios, correct?
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Thank you, Tom, for sharing the feedback. I will make sure to let MakeCode team know!
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I have a few students in my elementary school who made it through my Scratch lessons and I have challenged them with Minecraft. I set up a world for them where they cannot break or place any blocks, and I give them a ComputerCraftEDU turtle with a remote. They must program the turtle to gather resources and create structures. I encourage them to try and set up code to automate the turtle. It's an interesting and fun challenge for them to set up automatic miners.
This is all done in MinecraftEDU, but hopefully EE can do something similar... My students have no problem with the code, but that's because the maps are all saved and stored on the server side.
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@hawkins627
the agent is a bit clunkier than turtles. the inability to place them, the need to manually orient their direction and the inability to have multiple agents are all huge downsides. the codebuilder also lacks the undo feature, which is a huge downside. it also doesn't let you wheel-click to duplicate blocks, which would save so much time.
the coding interface is much better, the tynker interface always seems buggy but the makecode one works smoothly but it doesn't save work to a student account. you can save locally and import locally from files.
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I've looked at the makecode, and that is the ONLY thing I like about all of this. It would be a much smoother transition for my students to graduate from my Scratch lessons into a turtle coding interface like this one. However, the block coding interface provided by computercraftEDU works great and is just similar enough to Scratch block programming for the students to not get completely lost in the transition. In fact, I will go so far as to say it is better to give them a transition into something that is slightly different forcing them to adapt to the new interface.
I walked into this job with very little programming background. Years ago I tried Scratch for the first time and thus began my programming journey alongside my students. My first classes are in the high school at this point, and every year I challenge myself to do something new. Initially I made a few crappy Scratch games. Once we purchased and started using MinecraftEDU I got involved with the beginner turtles and command blocks... These last two years I started coding strait into lua with command computers and advanced mining turtles. I don't see myself going much further than this in an elementary school, but for my 3rd to 6th grade students this has been and will be an awesome ride preparing them for a future of programming, problem solving, and adaptability.
And lastly, when they ask me why I can't upgrade a stable build of MinecraftEDU past 1.7.10 I take that as a teachable moment to talk about corporate greed where profit is greater than product... From what I've seen so far a modded 1.7.10 > Minecraft EE.
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hi @mariaolekheyho to further add to the missing disappearing make code issue. I am an a tech trainer at a California school district and we just had this issue arise. Many of our kids have makecode's disappearing on them .Some of the research our team has been doing points to an issue with clearing the browsers cache. In a previous post you mentioned they would have to publish their code in order to "save" it in a sense. Is there any recommendation from the make code team in regards to retrieving code that has disappeared.
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When making lessons for MakeCode I sometimes get 1000 lines of code that I want to copy and paste as blocks to word/powerpoint. I can download a snapshot from the screen (right click), but it only makes a single file. It would be a lot more helpful if we could rightclick a command/function and get a snapshot for that command only. That would help a lot when making lessons.
Also, being able to use the target selectors for the agent in the NPC or command block would be super helpful. Example detecting if the agent is in a specified location to make sure a task has been executed successfully.
I would also like if it was possible to place chalkboards or signs with text/data using code/commands.
The structure block is extremely helpful in other editions. In the education edition it seems to only export 3D models. Using the structure block to re-use structures in other worlds would have been extremely helpful in the education edition.
Certain special blocks is not in the list of blocks in makecode. Like Deny. When making worlds it is very helpful to use code for designing areas.
Would also have loved to be able to do more with the NPC. Like multiple dialogues with criterias for when they would be displayed. For example using testfor etc. Also being able to move/animate and teleport the NPC.
In the future it would also be cool if the code students make would be saved with the world, so it worked when others opened the world. Like mods.
I my mind, it was easier to save projects to local computer before. In our environment we have a set of shared accounts, so users don't always use the same account and same computer every time. Getting back their code from last session should be a lot easier.
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Can't seem to find a way to get the agent to test if a crop square in front of it is ripe or not? no .getState() for crops?
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Thank you for the advice, Tom!
Also, we got stuck on the Pyramid. It seemed like the code didn't work: https://minecraft.makecode.com/examples/agent-pyramid
My colleague figured it out.
Minecraft Coding Team: You should make a note on this page that you have to put in a number after pyramid in chat mode for the build to work...
example:
pyramid 15
pyramid 13
pyramid 11
My code was perfect, but nowhere in the instructions did it say that you have to specify the number in chat mode. For a new person, this was totally baffling.
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