Christopher Slayton spent two months exploring black holes, identifying the colors of Saturn’s rings, and observing his home planet from space.
Eighteen-year-old Slayton never had to leave his desk. He set out to build the entire observable universe block by block in his Minecraft, a video game where users build and explore worlds.
By the end, he felt as if he had traveled to the farthest corners of the universe.
“Everyone is amazed at the power and vastness of the universe, but I didn’t really understand it,” he said. After working and spending another two weeks creating a YouTube video showcasing it, “I realized even more how beautiful it was.”
Slayton, known as ChrisDaCow on his Minecraft-focused YouTube, Reddit, Twitter, Instagram and TikTok accounts, said he’s been playing the game for almost a decade and isn’t a user of any other game. he said. Starting in 2019, he started posting videos on YouTube of his “builds”, the landscapes he creates in-game.this channel is his Top priority after graduating from high school this spring.
College may be on his radar, but it’s not the time yet, Mr. Slayton said. He plans to start working as a lifeguard soon while continuing to expand his YouTube content to reach more followers.
With nearly 25,000 subscribers on YouTube, Slayton says the reaction to the video motivated him to continue pursuing his ambitious ideas.
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His intention is to make the videos more interesting, as well as the narration combined with videos of gamers using the interface. He said he wanted to tell a story.
In a video about a space-building quest, he started by skydiving to see the planet from a different perspective before working on creating his own version of the universe. “The only way to truly appreciate the beauty of our planet is to jump out of a plane,” he said in the video.
He referenced photos for every detail of the Minecraft world, relearned math concepts to build his creations to scale, and made sure angles and proportions were as accurate as possible. For example, in his first attempt to create Africa, the results were too small.
With a notebook and sketchbook handy, Slayton organizes his videos, writes down ideas, and takes notes on topics he’s studying. In the video, he demonstrates his artistic skills on a whiteboard, including talking about planetary rings while explaining a concept he created in Minecraft.
“It’s really satisfying to be able to fly through some galaxies and see black holes, as well as movies like Interstellar,” he said.
As far as he knows, Slayton isn’t the first to attempt to create a universe in Minecraft. His Twitter page on his Xbox in the UK praised Mr Slayton’s work, and various social media users of his platform posted awe-inspiring comments.
“We want to tell a really interesting story, unlike the way others in the Minecraft or gaming community have done it,” Slayton said. “I want to raise the bar a little more”
Mr. Slayton’s last work was a rendition of Vincent van Gogh’s Starry Night. He says he wants to explore themes like the 4th dimension, the multiverse, and the metaverse in future builds and videos.
First released in 2009 and fully released in 2011, Minecraft is more than a hobby for many. For her B. Reeja Jayan, an associate professor of mechanical engineering, that’s how she teaches a materials science class at Carnegie-Her Mellon University.
Since 2017, Professor Jayan’s students have used Minecraft to connect their engineering learning to the concepts they care about. A student created a water world. In this world, water had different properties than in real life and could control anything that floated or sank.
“This gives each person the ability to learn and visualize,” she said. “And they feel that they are learning comprehensively. For many people and a wide range of learners, learning about the universe and learning about new advances is difficult.”
She said it’s easier to understand Minecraft’s three-dimensional concept than reading a textbook chapter.
“In my opinion, learning should be fun,” she said. “One of the advantages of using games like Minecraft is that they are very flexible. It is suitable.”
Ken Thompson, assistant professor of digital game design at the University of Connecticut, says exploring and learning concepts through Minecraft can be viewed as a generational shift.
About two-thirds of Americans play video games, according to a 2022 industry report. Professor Thompson said young people like Slayton can apply problem-solving and critical thinking when working on projects such as space creation.
“There are some very serious applications,” he said, adding, “There’s also a nice scientific aspect of experimenting with systems that would otherwise be very difficult to conceptualize.”
In 2022, several students at his college held their graduation ceremony at Minecraft, hosted by the Game Club, after in-person events were canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic. They created a campus, created avatars to represent students and faculty, and held virtual gatherings.
Slayton felt some relief after reading the world of Minecraft. He said he didn’t get enough sleep in those two months, felt sluggish after finishing the video, and caught a cold during a stressful time.
He hopes to move production out of his bedroom into the studio soon and continue working on his work.
Despite the response, Slayton said he wouldn’t be satisfied until he had a more permanent following on YouTube. “Until I can do that consistently, I’m a little nervous.”