[WIP/MECH] EduCraft - Educate while playing

EduCraft​

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This is very much a work in progress as I only started it yesterday. I thought I'd make something... different. In short, this plugin will ask the user questions based on admin settings and upon giving the correct answer, restore functionality to the user. I realize this is somewhat niche but thought it would be fun to make and possibly useful for teachers who want to employ Minecraft in the classroom or parents who want to run a private server for their family and have their kids do some studying/educational activities while playing.​

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The admin will set up different user groups based on curriculum they wish to teach. For instance a younger child might be presented with basic addition/subtraction problems and an older child presented with chemistry questions. Economy support is planned in that the child may either earn in game currency for getting an answer correct, remove currency for an incorrect answer, or spend currency to get a new question.​

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The questions currently pop up (will be configurable) ever 5 times a user accesses any chest or workbench in the game. After opening a chest 5 times, the user will be unable to open any chest in the game until they answer a random question. Right clicking the chest will present them with the question in the chat area. The user will then type "/answer 1234" and receive positive or negative feedback depending on the correctness of the answer. Getting it correct will give them an additional 5 times to open a chest before a new question is asked.​

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I am currently only working with chests, workbenches, and furnaces. Redstone triggerable things are too easy to override. I could modify it to disallow certain block placement though until the question was answered. Once I get the initial version working I plan on adding a leaderboard of sorts. After getting a user configurable amount of questions correct, you could get more uses before being prompted with another question... that kind of thing.​

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All the values noted above are just examples and will be configurable. I have also externalized all the displayed strings for language localization. I plan on having something deployable in the next few weeks. This is my first plugin so I plan on hitting some obstacles but I've had really good progress in the past day or so.​

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If you have any other ideas or suggestions feel free to post. I realize this isn't going to be the most popular mod for servers already as my target audience is pretty specific.​

 

I would keep it a reward-system. This is what should drive education anyway. If i would be punished for not answering questions, i would change the server, or think about not playing the game. Maybe i would get angry, because my friends play on servers without this plugin and therefor don't have to answer questions to simply play the game.

I would reward a player if he answers a question and MAYBE charge him for getting new questions faster. Good rewards would be items, health and iconomy-currency. A good way to enhance a reward-system are streaks. Maybe you get 5 cobblestone for the correct answer to a specific kind of question. If you give the correct answer to x questions of that kind in a row, you will get 1 iron instead.

By doing this players would feel they have a chance of winning by getting educated. If i get rare items by answering questions, maybe my friends would be jealouse for my server having this plugin.

I hope you see my point! Anyway the idea for this plugin is awesome!

 

Very good point! I'll shoot to allow for both. It'll probably be sign based for rewards. Right click a sign to get a new question, get enough right, get a reward. I should be focusing on positive reinforcement and honestly, should've known better myself. I'll go buy myself some more RAM to reinforce this to myself. Seriously though... good point!