Build A Big Blue Future – The Lion’s Mane Jellyfish Exhibit

Last term, I was asked to join a group of 3 other Rāwhiti Yr 7-8 students (with a lot of help by Whaea Elizabeth) that had decided to compete in a competition where you have to build an aquarium in Minecraft. The restrictions are: there is only one main exhibit (other tanks optional), the main exhibit must only be creatures that NZ creatures and it must help visitors to the to the Kelly Tarltons National Aquarium to better understand marine life in and around our oceans.

First, we spent lots of time researching different NZ marine animals, researching types of aquariums and finding NZ marine animal resource packs. After we had lots of information we started grouping it together on jamboards and docs. We then made a list of different animals that could be part of our exhibit, they had to be able to be housed in a n aquarium, they had to live in a similar salinity, temperature, and not attack each other. Meanwhile we broke into groups and made our own sketched aquariums on grid paper. Next, we cut out the good ideas from each aquarium and made a new one, this was our final aquarium idea. Partway through the aquarium designing process we decided that the main exhibit would be a jellyfish, in the end we decided that it would be the Lions Mane Jellyfish.

We then created a world on Minecraft and picked an area. After that, we placed blocks in diagonal and horizontal lines so we could build the outline from the aquarium we drew on the grid paper easier. This was very difficult, as it was so easy to get the lines just one block wrong and you would have to start that part over. When we finally managed to get everything right, everyone else started working on the aquarium, while I was given the task of giving color to the Lions Mane Jellyfish mob that we had also created because I am good at things like that.

I worked on the color for hours, looking at pictures, giving it its base colors, doing and redoing layer after layer to add more detail, then finally adding little bits of color on top of the layers to make it look more real. The others also spent hours working on the aquarium and they were chosen for this job because they are fast and skilled Minecraft builders. They had created one of the coolest builds I have ever seen! There were heaps of tanks and rock pools, they even had a second level  and a food and water management area for the Lions Mane Jellyfish enclosure.

Next, we put in the Lions Mane Jellyfish in the main tank, before moving on to the recording and videoing stage. The recording was a lot harder than we thought, as it took heaps of tries before we could get the words right. As for the videoing, we got heaps of kids together to pretend to be people viewing the aquarium, before taking video upon video. When at last we got the recording and videoing right, we put it all together and, after some editing, it looked pretty good. We didn’t sign up thinking we would win it, but imagine our surprise when we had got the top of our age group! We had won!