Want to engage kids in your summer city planning projects? 12-year-old Roman Borys gives some pointers on how to host a Minecraft lounge in your downtown.
"Last summer in Winnipeg, me, my mother, a couple of my friends, and the Downtown Winnipeg BIZ put together a Minecraft lounge. Now some of you have probably already read a blog last year that my mom wrote about this same Minecraft lounge. Her blog also included a piece about Pokémon GO, so this is the same thing from a different point of view (and no Pokémon GO)."
Roman goes through the steps he took to create the lounge, along with what he learned from the process.
"This experience helped a lot of kids (and adults) learn a little bit more about our downtown and how to make it a better place. It was very fun for everyone and I especially liked working with all the different groups of people. Everyone was very cooperative (with the few exceptions of people who were spawning polar bears in the middle of the street), so we could easily build very big things like the sky metro which would have taken a much longer time had there not been so many people."

One of the seven Downtown Winnipeg Minecraft Lounges. This one was in Chinatown. © Roman Borys, 2016, used with permission.

Our Minecraft model of Memorial Boulevard at Portage Avenue. © Roman Borys, 2016, used with permission.
FULL STORY: Downtown Winnipeg Minecraft Lounge
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