Nearly Five Years In the Waiting..

Hey there, I am back, nearly five years later, to again put forth what I believe is arguably the most critically-needed addition to Minecraft Education Edition. I do have to wonder if any of the topics on this feature wishlist are ever implemented if they weren't already planned, as this is such a simple addition (which I believe is already available in the Bedrock SDK) and solves so many issues users have already posted about that one would think it would be top priority as soon as its lack of implementation is pointed out.

I will post my previous comment from over four years ago, as I wrote it down when I was in that headspace and it is (unfortunately) just as relevant/accurate now as it was then. I hope you'll excuse my negative tone, but it is incredibly disappointing that such a simply implementable feature that fixes so many issues/adds so much functionality has received absolutely no attention over the course of nearly five years, aside from some copy-and-paste responses from moderators mistakenly saying it should be posted in the feature-wishlist, despite already being there. If there is somewhere else this needs to be posted or someone else who's attention it should be brought to, PLEASE let me know, as Minecraft Education Edition is so close to being an incredible tool for getting children invested in programming, rather than just a way to keep kids occupied for an hour or two a few times in-class.

ORIGINAL COMMENT:

The huge issue my team and I are running into when working on lesson-plans and curriculum for Minecraft Education Edition is that there seem to be some surprising omissions in-terms of commands for "sensing" certain things in the world. It feels as though we're missing some of the most basic/essential building-blocks required to really advance the classes beyond the surface-level activities our kids will complete within the first few classes. A quick example that I hope helps describe the type of commands we're surprised are missing is the ability to get the location of blocks where certain actions/events have taken place; for instance:

• Get location of block player is looking/aiming at.
• Get location of block player has placed.
• Get location of block player has destroyed.

There are certain features that we'd love to see, such as creating custom crafting recipes that we know would be really engaging for our students, but the lack of sensing abilities like the ones listed above are absolutely the most important by far, to the point I'd say they should be labeled "essential." Without a strong set of tools to get information from and about the environment, we're in a position where we can't really take what we've been given and "build" to anything more in-depth.

I'm looking for anyone associated with MEE itself or from the community that has any information on these issues and/or possible solutions. I noticed an "extensions" area, but haven't been able to find any real information on user-created blocks, functions, commands, etc., so any info on that would be appreciated as well. Our group thinks MEE has such incredible potential, but in our programming classes (in any language), a big focus is always on how programming gives us a foundation of powerful yet simple commands that we can then build from to create infinitely more complex and exciting results; with the current MEE feature-set however, we're just not seeing the same potential as other platforms such as Scratch (as an example for this age-range) do such a fantastic job of offering. I really don't want this to come off as just negative, because there's so much potential here and the key to unlocking it is so simple with these basic sensing commands, it's just that I cannot overstate how the current lack of them really is an insurmountable roadblock.

Any help or info is greatly appreciated and to end on a more upbeat sounding note, the Agent is absolutely ADORABLE and we all love him!

Thanks!