Prototype 2 (is what I am calling this current version) looks amazing, unfortunately in my messing around I have messed up the nucleotide base pairs up, they no longer join the way they should. I think because each Minecraft block in the current model is 0.2mm in real life you can barely tell it was designed in Minecraft (except for the bits that I left blocky deliberately).
The connection between the nucleotide and the 'backbone' is much better than I imagined, however the connection between the backbone pieces needs a bit of work. I printed this in red ABS because that is what I had in the printer last night, however once I have the final model the way I want it I think I will print the backbone pieces in black and each of the nucleotides in a different colour (blue, red, green and yellow) which should make for a very striking model.
These photos do not do the real thing justice, I cannot get a fine enough focus on my phone camera to show the detail. Needless to say I am loving having my own printer to prototype with and I am also sharing these models with the world on thingiverse.com if you are interested, although the DNA model is not there yet, I want to make it a working model before sharing.
Now to the collaboration with Jonas, his students are in the process of exploring forces in Minecraft, I sent off my Gravity Lab map last night as well as a link to the introductory video. He is going to get a website happening where his students can respond to the activity in the map and share their thoughts with my students (next year).
That pretty much sums up the last couple of weeks, hopefully things will calm down a bit now and I will be able to design and print more educational models in MinecraftEdu ready to go for next year as I will not be returning to classes this year. I will also be trying to find some more time to edit down some of the remaining Gravity Lab footage to share with you. Thanks for reading and feel free to comment below.
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