Coding with Minecraft

You’ve mined for diamonds, crafted dozens of tools, and built all sorts of structures—but what if you could program robots to do all of that for you in a fraction of the time?

In Coding with Minecraft®, you’ll create a virtual robot army with Lua, a programming language used by professional game developers. Step-by-step coding projects will show you how to write programs that automatically dig mines, collect materials, craft items, and build anything that you can imagine. Along the way, you’ll explore key computer science concepts like data types, functions, variables, and more.

Check out the book's dedicated website! You can also download the files for the book.

Learn how to

• Program robots that make smart decisions with flow control
• Reuse code so that your robots can farm any crop you want, including wheat, sugar cane, and even cacti!
• Program a factory that generates infinite building supplies
• Design an algorithm for creating walls and buildings of any size
• Code yourself a pickaxe-swinging robotic lumberjack!
• Create a robot that digs mine shafts with stairs so you can explore safely
• Bonus activities in each chapter will help you take your coding skills to the next level. By the end of the book, you’ll understand how powerful coding can be and have plenty of robots at your beck and call.

Requires

• Minecraft Java Edition - Windows 7 or later; macOS 10.10 or later

Author Bio

Al Sweigart is a professional software developer who teaches programming to kids and adults. Sweigart has written several bestselling programming books for beginners, including Automate the Boring Stuff with Python, Invent Your Own Computer Games with Python, and Cracking Codes with Python (all from No Starch Press).

Table of contents

Introduction
Chapter 1: Getting Started with Minecraft and Computercraft
Chapter 2: Basic Lua Programming for Turtles
Chapter 3: Talking to Your Turtle
Chapter 4: Programming Turtles to Dance
Chapter 5: Making a Better Dancer
Chapter 6: Programming a Robo Lumberjack
Chapter 7: Creating Modules to Reuse Your Code
Chapter 8: Running an Automated Tree Farm
Chapter 9: Building a Cobblestone Generator
Chapter 10: Making a Stone Brick Factory
Chapter 11: Constructing Walls
Chapter 12: Constructing Rooms
Chapter 13: Constructing Floors
Chapter 14: Programming a Robotic Farm
Chapter 15: Programming a Staircase Miner
Appendix A: Function Reference
Appendix B: Name ID Reference

Extra Stuff

• Download the official, paid version of Minecraft, available from https://minecraft.net/
• Download Java, available for free from https://www.java.com/en/download/
• Download ATLauncher software, available for free from https://www.atlauncher.com/
• Download ComputerCraft mod, available for free from https://www.computercraft.info/

Installation Instructions Update

Update for Minecraft 1.16 and Later

The instructions in the book only work for Minecraft 1.8. Instead of using the ATLauncher program to add the ComputerCraft mod to Minecraft, the current version of Minecraft uses Forge. Updated instructions are found in this blog post, Installing the ComputerCraft Mod for Minecraft 1.16 (and later), and a video of installing Forge and the mod are on YouTube.