| I've worked in hardware, and think this kind of play is meaningful. You confront many of the engineering challenges you'd face (in terms of line routing, timing challenges, design concerns, modularity, etc), but they have simpler and more straightforward constraints because of the different medium. You're also really unlikely to get results using exactly this same skill set when trying to work with real hardware. The immediate need for programming and complicated tools becomes apparent when you try to grapple with the complexity of modern ICs. If you're just going to have them blink LEDs using logic gates, I fail to see what you think you're getting from hiding all the logic circuitry in little black boxes and making the parts harder to work with. I've encountered all the engineering concepts (minus some physics concerns) I learned in several quarters of circuit design as an undergrad. The reality is that Minecraft actually is a very good tool for introducing hardware concepts, because it removes the dependence on understanding software to do something. (Really, the tooling around hardware needs to be better, particularly for things like FPGAs. Raspberry Pis and Arduinos are making good inroads.) |