Inspiration
On our drive over to Ann Arbor from Madison, WI, our group was brainstorming different possibilities for this hackathon. We decided we wanted to incorporate Minecraft due to its increasing presence in education for the youth, the Oculus Rift, and the Nessie API. For many people, college students especially, being responsible with money isn't always a top priority. As a result, many people struggle paying their next bill due to irresponsible purchases. Why not start teaching kids young how to save their money? This is how our idea came to be. Minecraft provides kids with a fun way to learn about finances and the importance of saving.
What it does
Learn to Save allows kids to have their very own savings account. There is a catch, though. After depositing your money, you can't withdraw it. You are able to eventually exchange it for a valuable investment, diamonds. The way our goal system works is, the more money you save up, the larger the reward. This teaches kids to hold on to their money and not spend it all right away!
How we built it
We built the Minecraft mod in Java and utilized a tool called Minecraft Coder Pack that helps to decompile and recompile the source files.
Challenges we ran into
Our biggest challenge was making POST requests in Java. Since this was new to all of us, we had to go through a lot of research on completing this.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
We are very proud of how we were able to setup the Oculus Rift to work with Minecraft as well as our ability to merge real world data into a video game.
What we learned
We learned the importance of planning our projects. In the beginning, we ran into a big issue with the Oculus Rift compatibility. This put a wrench in our progress and hindered us from completing all of our goals.
What's next for Learn to Save - A Minecraft Mod
Some future goals include: -Incorporating a free weather API allowing users to experience the same weather and time in game as is in their location -Utilizing our mod with the Oculus Rift version of Minecraft -Display financial data on signs instead of using chat
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