Around Ottawa: Minecraft Workshop at the Canada Aviation and Space Museum

This weekend, I signed my son up for the Mining and Gaming workshop at the Canada Aviation and Space Museum. Basically, he played Minecraft with other kids his age for 3 hours.  And yes, he loved it.

The workshop is divided into two different time slots by age (beginning at age 8) and has been running since the end of February on select days for March Break.  It continues next weekend and throughout March Break in the Ottawa area.

While the kids share a special server and play the game as usual by finding minerals and more, there is a twist: each session group is working towards building a spaceship. This means that certain materials will be better than others to use, that they have to work as a team and get creative in their design. It’s chaos at first but really fun to see how the group comes together to complete their task.  The Museum will be putting photos of the finished ships on Facebook.

The event takes place in the auditorium which is set up with large screen computers (one for each participant) and a display about space and mining. There is a large screen at the front of the room as well that follows the teacher participants.

The teachers start the day with a short presentation at the beginning about space and mining and what the goal of the morning is.  Then they dig right in and the rest of the time is spent playing and gathering materials and then making their group spaceship.

The kids all had an understanding of the game already and everyone seemed to really enjoy it.  My son has said ‘thank you’ for signing him up multiple times and has said he would do it again (hint hint mom).

If you are looking for a half-day March break activity for your kids and they are 8 years old or older, this may be the perfect spot.

The workshop costs $25 but that includes entry into the museum as well. Details, dates, ages and registration information can be found on the website.