ABERTAY University has been recreated on Minecraft to allow applicants to explore the university’s campus during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Nine masters students from the university’s school of design and informatics came up with the innovative solution to use Minecraft as a means of offering potential students an experience of the Dundee-based university.
Minecraft is a building game, which allows users to create structures using various types of building blocks. It uses basic graphics and is most commonly played on computers, but is also available on games consoles and mobile phones.
It took the team around six weeks to construct the replica, using more than 700,000 Minecraft blocks in the process. Amazingly, the students behind the project finished the build before ever actually attending Abertay’s campus – having previously studied elsewhere.
Team member Baron Zhang said, “We had a lot of material to work from, but to be honest it was quite hard!
“We gradually discovered tips and tricks in Minecraft to help us build our version of Abertay, and in the end we were happy with what we produced. We hadn’t been to the campus yet though, and we were a little worried that our Abertay would not look like the real thing.
“Now though, I feel like we did a good job and we all feel proud.”
Yiqun Guo, also from the team, added, “One other difficulty that we faced was working remotely. We weren’t in the same place at the same time when we made the model and had to communicate using WeChat, which is a Chinese social media app.
“We used Google maps to make the outside of the building and that worked well. Using photos and videos to make the inside look good was a bit harder they only capture certain angles.
“It was a lot of work, but it’s really cool and very exciting to know people will be using our model to explore Abertay.”
Minecraft Abertay can be accessed on Minecraft Java Edition, by entering the IP address: 34.105.192.136
