What is your hidden superpower?

 I recently read a book called Quiet Power, by Susan Cain, which is a book about introversion. Now, a lot of you are probably thinking, What is introversion? Well, introversion is a personality trait where you react to stimulation more strongly than extroverts. Extroverts are the people who are the life of the party, the people who enjoy loud music, and the people who can make friends at the drop of a hat. Introverts are people who prefer to be reading a book or using their iPad on the couch.

I am an introvert myself and this book really helped me learn more about my personality. At school, people always ask me, Are you OK? They ask this because I’m quiet or just staring off into space while I’m thinking. I never understood why people thought I was angry or sad, when really I was perfectly fine. Susan’s book taught me that extroverts prefer to have stimulation at all times and do not need to “recharge their batteries” by having time alone.

In my school’s science fair, I did a project on personality. It was mainly focused on Minecraft players’ level of introversion or extroversion and their preferences for playing in creative or survival mode (see my Minecraft for Dummies post). In that project I learned a lot about introversion as well as extroversion, but this book, Quiet Power, really helped me understand myself even more than I already did. I learned that introversion is my superpower. In chapter 10, The Quiet Athlete, Susan talks about how introverts who play sports are able to practice hours on end alone, whereas extroverts need stimulation from people after a certain amount of time. I thought this really fit me because if I have the drive to do something, then I  can focus on it for long periods of time without interruptions. I play basketball by myself at our local school all the time to perfect my shot.

I love being introverted; one piece of advice I have for introverts is, don’t try and be someone you’re not. Embrace your introversion and you can do great things.

And now…. The Not So Philosophical Question! Do you think you are introverted? Take Susan Cain’s Quiet Revolution Personality Test to find out. Make sure to answer in the comment box! That’s all!

Redstone Lessons With Robo – Part 1

Today I have a lot of time on my hands so I decided to write a blog post. Today’s topic: Minecraft. I recently started a new world for redstone. In case you are wondering what the heck is redstone it’s a item in Minecraft  that you use to make machines in Minecraft. I’ve been on this world very frequently making machines. Before I start telling you about the machines I took some screenshots of some of some things related to redstone that you might not know.

pressure plate: When stepped on it sends out a surge of power

redstone torch: If placed next to redstone it powers that redstone forever until powered by another source of power

redstone repeater: At some point a redstone circuit will run out of power at some point but if you place a repeater at the end of a redstone circuit it will strengthen the signal and allow it to travel farther

redstone comparator: Comparators can detect if a item is a chest workbench furnace etc. so if there is a item in a chest and there is a comparator next to it the comparator sends out a redstone signal.

redstone: If redstone is powered it can turn on machines like pistons or turn off machines like redstone torches

sticky piston: When powered it extends to two blocks and can retract a block next to it or push a block next to it

note block: If hit it makes a sound. it can make different sounds if placed on different blocks.

hopper: It can take a item out of a chest or put one in

dropper: Can throw a item if there is one in the dropper and it is being powered by any source of power

So these are the basic things that the following machines are made of.

The first thing that I made is called the death games randomizer

These are the materials you will need:

• redstone
• redstone torch
• droppers
• hopper
• pressure plate
• chest

So if anyone plays on a white listed server (the creator of the server has to invite you to the server) on minecraft you can build this and have a death games game on the server. So here’s how it works. There is a chest next to the machine and it is full of swords with people’s names on them. If anyone wants to play they put their sword in the chest that is on top. And then they step on the pressure plate that’s connected to the redstone that is coming out from the left redstone torch. Then when you step on the pressure plate it turns on the redstone which turns off the the redstone torch. When a hopper is being powered it doesn’t work so it is being powered until you step on the pressure plate and it takes the item from the sword from the chest and puts it into the dropper next to it. If someone else puts their sword in there it would do the same thing and so the dropper would choose one sword randomly and put it into the other hopper and it would be put up to the other hopper that is connected to a hopper which leads to the chest. When someone else puts their sword in and steps on the pressure plate it will put someone’s sword in the chest. What they will be able to do is if someone happens to walk by they could check the chest and see if someone’s sword was in the chest.

The game part is that there is going to be another chest with armor, a bow and a sword. They can sneak up on the person whose sword is in the chest and try to kill them. But if the person who attacks fails, they owe the person they tried to kill one diamond and vice versa.

This is only part one. There will probably be three redstone lesson posts.

If you have any suggestions to make my machines better please comment. Or you can tell me what machines you have made in Minecraft. I think I have an idea to may death games randomizer a lot better. See if you can guess what it is.

 

 

Minecraft Update

Robo here I am sorry if i haven’t blogged in a while. I have a lot of things going on in my life right now. Today I am going to talk about what’s been going on in Minecraft :D. I have been building a Roman type house that I have been thinking a lot about. It’s a 20-by-6 building  so it’s a pretty large building in terms of Minecraft. Here are some pictures of the building.

roman house

the roof pattern

columns inside

Minecraft Town Under Construction

I’m working on a town in Minecraft and I’ve established and hired and done all the dirty work just so you can see this. It is still in construction.

Food Court

The first picture is my food court. It has cakes, a farm, three furnaces and one chest. Even though you can’t see them they are inside that glass. If you look closely you can see the top of the cakes. I am suspecting they are red velvet.

War Shop

This is my favorite shop so far. It has a defense perimeter which you can see in the bottom left corner and under that is pressure plates and if you step on them the blocks in front of it pushes up so you can not jump over it. It also has iron doors because you can’t open those. You have to use a pressure plate or a button.

Wizard Tower

This is where the mage/wizard goes to work. On the other side of the wall, there is a balcony which is where the wizard works. On that balcony is a brewing stand and cauldron filled with water. And the blue light that is coming out of the top of it I’m going to explain next.

 

Wizard Tower Beacon

The blue light is a beacon that I built using iron and gold blocks. In survival mode it is very hard to make a beacon. You need to have a nether star. In order to get nether star you need to fight the wither boss. If you don’t know what a nether star is go here to the Minecraft Wiki.

Stage

The stage is where thousands of spectators come around to see amazing musicians, including me. The four boxes on the ground and the item frame with wood inside are called note blocks. When you right click on them they make a musical note. The two pieces of rock with item frames with nothing in them are the stereos.

Blacksmith Shop

This is still under construction. I am going to finish over the weekend but when it is done it is going to have about ten furnaces, an anvil and a fireplace. And I might add something else. I am also going to build a bank.

Questions for my readers

Let me know what else you want me to build in my town. A museum? A doctor’s office? A grocery store? A playground? Other stuff?

Minecraft Parody Sleepover

I have a guest author tonight named Survival Maniac (Minecraft user name). He’s going to write this blog post. – Robo

Thanks Robo! I’ll take it from here.

When Robo and I were playing Minecraft together on the computer we realized that we are not a great team. We kept having to respawn (come alive again). Luckily we had each other and we shared our food and weapons. Robo even found red stone and lapis lazuli. Once we were trapped in our house when two spiders were surrounding us. We had just respawned so we didn’t have any weapons. We had a lot of trouble defeating the spiders. Luckily our house was in the desert so we pushed them into cacti.

We’ve been watching a lot of parodies for songs. And these are our favorite ones.

Don’t Mine at Night is a funny parody and also teaches you a lesson for playing Minecraft. The lesson is not to mine at night because if you mine at night there will be a lot of monsters on your way to the cave and a lot in the cave.

Like An Enderman is a video that shows you what an enderman may do to you in Minecraft. Lesson: Stay away from endermans!!

Join Me Stevie is a parody of Call Me Maybe. It is about Stevie, the main character in Minecraft, being found by a lonely teenage girl that is going to help him with his skills.

Minecraft Style is one of the top 10 Minecraft songs. If you like digging in Minecraft this is the perfect song for you.

Survival Maniac signing off!

King Tut’s Temple?

This is a picture of a pyramid that I found in Minecraft.

There is no one in it which is kind of weird because what great ancestor of King Tut abandons his pyramid and just leaves it there?

And why would he go to the realm of Minecraft? If you know the answers to these questions please leave them on the comments.

Photo from: lkajsdfl via Compfight cc

New Year’s Eve Resolution

My new  year’s eve resolution is to play Minecraft more. But my mom won’t let me play on school days. Fortunately,my mom will let me post on my blog any day of the week.I am doing this because I just learned how to cure zombie villagers.

Step 1: Find a zombie villager.

Step 2: Trap the zombie villager.

Step 3 Throw a golden apple and a weakness potion at him.

Step 4: Watch him turn into a villager!

So, my blog readers that is how you cure a zombie villager!

To learn more about Minecraft see Minecraft for Dummies

Minecraft for Dummies

Photo of Minecraft cow from: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ninsvims/

Minecraft is a computer game about breaking and placing blocks. Some people like to survive in whatever they get plopped in and try to survive from all the zombies, skeletons, spiders and creepers. Creepers are green things that walk on four legs and have square mouths. Or some people like to play in creative mode which means you have every single block and item in Minecraft. In creative mode it is all about building. You can watch the sunset over a blocky ocean (everything in Minecraft is made out of blocks).

I play Minecraft and all my worlds are in creative mode because I like building things more than trying to survive. Once I built a house made out of glass and another time I was trying to find an open space to start building a house and I found a village. Villages have villagers, sheeps, cows and stuff. They have little houses which practically every time are the same only they live in different environments. Once I blew up a town in the desert which is kind of weird because who lives in the desert? And I blew up the side of a guy’s house. And in the process I made a waterfall because I blew up part of the farm which had water in it. Don’t ask me where they got the water because I don’t know where.

So, for dummies people who don’t know anything about Minecraft out there you can read my blog and find out what Minecraft is. And then you can play Minecraft!!!!!!!

Paul Soares Jr. is a person who plays Minecraft and records videos and I watch his videos. Now you can watch his videos too!! These videos give examples of what you can do in Minecraft like how to farm something, craft anything or cook something.