Elijah’s Highway: What Is Slope and Radius?

  • Elijah’s Highway: What Is Slope and Radius?

    Posted by profmag on September 24, 2024 at 11:43 pm

    In this activity for Wed morning, we’re going to learn about slope and radius — two important concepts for road-building — by building roads in Minecraft. Here’s a video to explain slope in MC.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZ0hI7V_Vgw

    • After watching the video, each learner should replicate the OP’s slope demo in their own creative world.
    • Make sure everyone knows that slope is rise-over-run (rise/run). So a slope of 3 is really 3/1 because it rises 3 as it runs 1. If the slope is 1/6, it rises 1 as it runs 6.
    • See the next post for next steps.
    profmag replied 1 week ago 1 Member · 3 Replies
  • 3 Replies
  • profmag

    Organizer
    September 24, 2024 at 11:46 pm

    Slope in road building and earth moving is called grade and it’s a percent rather than a fraction (for example, they say either “a 10% grade” or “15 grade”). It’s actually still a fraction, but the bottom number is always 100, so a 10% grade is 10/100 slope — in other words, it rises 10 unit for every 100 it runs.

    Here’s a video explaining this:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ULSERqhCd-I

    • See next post for further instructions.
    • This reply was modified 1 week ago by  profmag.
  • profmag

    Organizer
    September 24, 2024 at 11:56 pm

    Now that we know about slope and grade, we’re ready to build a road in MC. According to the DEC Unpaved Forest Road Handbook, the roads we’re going to build should have a maximum grade of 15%, but 10% is even better.

    • Take what you’ve learned and make a MC road by either 1) using the shovel to make a dirt road, or 2) placing blocks.
    • Make your road at least 200 blocks long and 4 wide.
    • See the next post for BONUS content — how to figure out curve radius in MC!
  • profmag

    Organizer
    September 25, 2024 at 12:32 am

    Watch this video for information about how to plan curves using math in MC. Add a proper curve with a 20-block radius to your road for BONUS.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fdmmmbGP8sQ

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