spatch

Ever since more-or-less finishing up the dark ride Jinx I have been working on a second Minecraft dark ride project. The current project has taken on the name Chamber of Science due mostly to the fact that I've been doing all my fribbulous redstone circuitry work, including the light displays and adding machine, in that flat world.

Naturally one must apply the principles one has learned to one's dark rides.

THE CHAMBER OF SCIENCE AWAITS

This circuitry is part of the innards of the third stunt (that's dark ride lingo for "something cool happening", more or less) in the Chamber of Science.

The ride's layout passes through these innards, a eight-bit memory array, so you can relax undt watchen das blinkenlights. The white light cubes on the left are just for illumination, though the columns strobe very slowly since they're connected to the circuitry what drives the lights for the stunt.

The stunt itself is an eight-character message board which cycles through eight cheery messages as your cart goes past.

The light sequencer is driven by a Crude Yet Effective^TM minecart timer. When active, the little cart runs around clockwise at a constant rate, hitting that round trigger track once per go. It is currently stopped on its brake because it's annoying to do anything constructive with a huge piece of circuitry running. To keep processors happy (and save redstone energy!) the Chamber of Science stunts are only active while the cart is in its scene area.

If the stunts kept running even while nobody was around, not only would your processor start crying, but the constant sound of pistons EVERYWHERE would drive you absolutely bonkers. This is the first major scene in the Chamber of Science, happily named The Hall of Pistons. There are four piston-based stunts in this scene and they are all active as you go past. You probably won't get a chance to see them all in one go, which means this thing has RE-RIDEABILITY like nobody's bidniss.

I've taken quite a liking recently to MCEdit, the program that lets you fiddle with whole chunks of Minecraft worlds. I've been using it to paste in numerous identical large objects, such as the ribs of this vaulted ceiling. It's like putting together a bunch of prefabricated parts!

The Chamber of Science's queue area is a collection of historical exhibits showcasing technological achievements in the Minecraft universe, such as the furnace and anvil. And there are a few more.