Lists: Many Materials, One Loop
An array of block types and a loop that walks it — a rainbow wall, a striped tower, a pattern you can reorder in one place.
Section 1 · MakeCode
Coding the Agent with MakeCode
Block coding inside Minecraft Education's Code Builder. One new idea per lesson — loops, variables, if, functions, lists, events — then ninety minutes of challenges building with it. By the end a forest, a farm and an aquarium each take one program instead of one afternoon.
A · Start here
MC-L1-01Your World, Your Agent: Move, Turn and Teleport
Everything needed to begin, in one go: a flat Creative world with coordinates on, the movement keys, Code Builder, and on chat command programs that move, turn and teleport the Agent.
MC-L1-02The Agent Builds: Set Item, Place and Destroy
Fill the Agent's inventory from code, place on down or forward, and destroy. First builds: a line of stone, the letters MC, a square outline and a ten-block tower.
B · Loops and numbers
MC-L1-03Repeat: Your First Loop
Nine blocks become three. One repeat turns a five-block line into a fifty-block line without touching the program.
MC-L1-04Loops Inside Loops: Walls, Squares and Layers
A row loop inside a turn loop inside a height loop — a 5×5 wall, a hollow room, a hut with a doorway, and why one slot of 64 blocks is the real ceiling on how big you can build.
MC-L1-05Variables: Name a Number, and Let the Player Type It
Store the wall size in a variable so it can never disagree with itself, then add a number to the chat command — type "wall 20" and the program builds to order without you opening the code.
MC-L1-06Making Choices: if and else
Guard the number the player typed — nothing happens on zero, and 40 is more than a slot holds — then let the build pick its own material. Small builds get stone, big builds get glass, and the program decides.
C · Coordinates and fill
MC-L1-07Coordinates and Fill: Build Without Walking
Three numbers name any block in the world, and two corners name a box. One fill block builds the whole thing at once — no Agent, no walking, no inventory and no 64-block ceiling.
MC-L1-08World Position and Materials: A Real Building, Anywhere
A world address never moves; ~ ~ ~ follows you. Then stack fills of different materials — foundation, walls, a band of windows, a roof — so a build stops being a box and starts being a house you can drop anywhere.
D · Bigger builds, less code
MC-L1-09Spawn: Animals, Farms and Aquariums
Mobs are not blocks — they wander, and they cannot be cloned. Build the pen first, then spawn the herd inside it with a loop; then a glass tank, water inside the glass, and fish.
MC-L1-10Clone: Copy and Paste a Whole Building
Copy a finished structure anywhere in the world — a street of five houses from one. Mobs have to be spawned again after cloning.
MC-L1-11Functions: Name Your Own Block
Wrap a wall in a function called buildWall, then call it four times. The lesson where earlier programs get rewritten short.
MC-L1-12Mini Project: The Maze Creator
A whole session on one build, using everything so far — partitioned rooms and a roof from loops and variables, mobs released inside, a clone backup that repairs the maze when it breaks, and the walls raised by a function you wrote.
E · Data and surprise
Random: No Two Builds the Same
pick random for materials, heights and positions. A forest where every tree differs, generated fresh each run.
Events: When a Block Is Broken or Placed
on block broken, on block placed, on player walk on. Code that waits for the player instead of a typed command — traps and rewards.
F · The Agent thinks
Agent Detect and Inspect: Seeing What is Ahead
agent detect feeding an if. The Agent stops at a wall, bridges a gap, and stops walking off cliffs.
While Loops: Keep Going Until…
Repeat an unknown number of times. Dig until bedrock, walk until a wall — the loop that ends when the world says so.
G · Big builds
Big Build: The Animal Farm
A whole session on one brief — fenced pens, layered materials, two species spawned inside, built from functions you wrote.
Big Build: The Aquarium Tower
Glass shell, water fill, seagrass floor and three kinds of fish, all at a world position so the class can visit each other's.
Big Build: Your Own World
Forest, river and a cloned village, generated with random and functions. The portfolio piece for the section.
Big Build: Finish and Share Your World
Finish the build, then export the world and play a classmate's. The share-and-export step every original lesson ended on, given a slot of its own.
Assessment
Section 1 Assessment
Build to a written brief using loops, a variable, a function and fill — then explain what each part of your program does.
Section 2 · Command Block
Commands, Command Blocks & Making Games
Typed Minecraft commands, then the blocks that store and chain them. Impulse, chain and repeat; testforblock, testfor and scoreboards; NPCs, redstone and the Education-edition blocks that keep a map from being wrecked. The section ships a playable adventure map with a start, a win and a reset. Prereq: Section 1.
A · Talking to the world
Your First Command: The Chat Box and the Slash
Cheats, operator rights, and reading a syntax line. /gamemode, /give, /clear, /time and /weather — the five you reach for in every lesson after this.
Target Selectors: @p, @a, @e and @s
Who a command acts on, and the filters that narrow it: [type=chicken], [r=30], [c=1]. The idea that makes every later command precise.
Building by Command: /setblock, /fill and /clone
The typed version of Section 1's Blocks category, plus what MakeCode never showed — the fill modes hollow, outline, keep and replace.
Mobs and Messages: /summon, /kill and /title
Spawn an entity at a coordinate, remove one type without touching the rest, and put a title, subtitle or action bar on the screen.
B · The command block
Your First Command Block
/give @s command_block, a tour of the settings panel, and the gotcha that costs everyone an hour: inside a block, @s is the block — you want @p.
Impulse, Chain and Repeat
Once on a rising edge, once after the block pointing into it, or every tick forever. Direction matters — the arrow is the wiring.
Conditional, Unconditional, Redstone and Always Active
The two switches that decide whether a block runs. Why chain blocks want Always Active, and why Always Active on an impulse block does nothing.