Made a New Mod -- "Simple GPS"

[Joe Allington]

Hey folks!

I've made a very small mod that adds a single item to the game: a "GPS" device that, when held, tells your X/Y/Z coordinates, and the direction you're facing.

Here's a link to some additional screenshots:  http://imgur.com/a/AHLkG

I made this because I thought the F3 menu was way too busy and confusing.  I wanted the interface and use to be more "kid friendly".  I know that a number of mini-map mods display rounded coordinates, but I wanted something more lightweight and modular, in case someone wants the player to have access to coordinates, but not a bird's-eye view of the world.

In addition, the F3 menu displays "NORTH", "WEST", etc., but it's far from exact.  We saw a lot of kids trying to go north but instead going more northwest or northeast.  So, the GPS interface says "Somewhat", "Mostly", or "Exactly", to help the player move along axes more precisely.

We just tried this out in a 6th grade math class this morning, and the results were great!  We saw kids having a noticeably easier time navigating the world and zeroing in on the treasures we set up for them.  So I wanted to share it in case anyone would like to use it as well.  The .jar file is attached to this thread.  Be sure to install it on both the server and the client programs.

Let me know if you have any feedback or find any bugs.  Cheers!

[Michael Harvey]

Very cool Joe! I've considered doing  some navigation lessons, but I've avoid it because the drawbacks you mention. One idea: What would you think about using cardinal directions like "South-South-East" instead of "mostly south"? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cardinal_direction#/media/File:Brosen_windrose.svg

Would that be challenging based on how your wrote the mod? 

[Linda Gielen]

Great mod, Joe!  Thanks for posting.  I use a mod called Batty's Coords that gives you a constant heads-up display and does show the NE SE SW NW directions as well.  You may want to check this one out as well: http://www.curse.com/mc-mods/minecraft/batty-coords.

Linda

[Joe Allington]

Thanks for the feedback, Michael and Linda!

My idea behind the "Exactly/Mostly/Somewhat" style of presenting the direction was that I wanted the students to try traveling exactly along one axis at a time.  What I saw happening was, for example: a student would have the correct X coordinate, but their current Z coordinate was greater than their target Z coordinate.  They'd start traveling "south"-ish to increase the Z coordinate, but by the time they'd arrive at the correct Z coordinate, the X coordinate was no longer correct, because they were traveling at a slight diagonal.  So they'd repeat the process to fix X, but they'd once more travel at an angle, so their Z coordinate would now be off.  So it would take maybe half a dozen movements to find the coordinate, instead of just one or two movements.

But I bet we can have our cake and eat it, too.  I'm thinking of two possible ways of implementing both (a) the cardinal (and intercardinal, and secondary-intercardinal) directions, and (b) something to let the player know they're pointing within a couple degrees of a cardinal direction:

1. Let the "Direction" line simply tell the cardinal direction (N, NW, NNW, etc), without "Exactly/Mostly/Somewhat".  Then, add a fifth line that says something like "Cardinal Alignment", with just a red light or a green light.  The light turns green when the player is within a few degrees of a cardinal direction (N, S, E, W).
2. Create a new style of compass display at the top of the screen, which has the cardinal direction symbols.  The compass "bar" scrolls left and right as you turn.  Here's an example of the style of compass I'm thinking of, minus the red and blue indicators.

What do y'all think?  Option 1 would take less time to implement, but if folks are excited about Option 2 I might give it a shot.

[Michael Harvey]

Option 1 sounds good to me!

[Halligator1]

Option 1 sounds like a great call

[Joe Allington]

OK, new and improved version comin' at ya!

• The heads-up display has been changed to show cardinal direction, including intermediate (NW, SE) and secondary-intermediate (ENE, SSW) directions.  The direction is shown in the top-right of the HUD.
  
• The "Aligned" light has been added, indicating that you are within plus or minus 3 degrees of a cardinal direction (N, E, S, or W).  This is to guide students to travel along one axis at a time.
• A new item has been added: the GPS Headset!  For hands-free coordinate tracking, you can wear the GPS Headset (in the helmet slot) to display the GPS screen constantly.  This'll allow you to use a tool and the GPS display at the same time.

More screenshots:  http://imgur.com/a/hykH5

Download link: http://mc.makersfactory.com/gpsmod/MFYGPS-0.0.7.jar

Thanks everyone for the suggestions, I'm excited about the changes!  Let me know if you have any other feedback.  Cheers!

On Wednesday, May 13, 2015 at 5:55:02 PM UTC-7, Joe Allington wrote:

[Linda Gielen]

That is absolutely brilliant!

Linda

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[Halligator1]

Hey Joe

I have been planning to test this today, but I can't make it appear in my game.

Is this a 1.8 mod? I am using MinecraftEdu 1.7.10 build 19. 

Hal

[Joe Allington]

Hi Hal,

Sorry for the delayed response, been a busy few days.  I double-checked on build 19 and it seems to be loading fine on my end.

By "can't make it appear", do you mean the mod won't load properly (e.g. won't show up in mods list, or gives an error), or do you mean that the compass won't display?  If it's the latter, the trick is to be holding a GPS item, or be wearing a GPS Headset (in the helmet slot of your character).  If you're not using one of these items, the HUD won't show up.  Both of these items can be found in the Tools tab of your creative menu.

If it's the former issue (won't load, error), can you let me know the circumstances?  What other mods are you using, if any?  Is the GPS mod loaded in both the client and the server side?

[Halligator1]

Very embarrassed about this. Your mods works perfect... I guess I was looking for a new MOD tab in the inventory, and did not catch the fact that the tools were in.... tools :)

Tested it now, and it works great. 

Today we also got some great news from the government. They have released a webpage to create Minecraft maps from real topographic maps. Combined with your GPS mod I can do real cool stuff in a world made from my kids own local area. 

Treasure Hunt local style, here we come :)

http://labs.kartverket.no/lag-din-minecraft-verden/ 

Hal

[Joe Allington]

No need to be embarrassed, I think this is good feedback.  Thinking about it now, the vast majority of mods do have their own dedicated tabs, and leave the "vanilla" Minecraft tabs alone.  So I should probably make my own inventory tab for this as well; even though it's only two items, it'll be more intuitive.  Thanks!

Also, super excited to hear about the real topo maps!  This gives me another idea for this GPS mod.  What if the GPS could have a special setting that' show not normal Minecraft coordinates, but "real world" coordinates, in latitude/longitude format?  You could set in the config file the latitude and longitude of the (0,0) Minecraft coordinate, so that everything could line up properly.  For example, say you load your real-world topography into Minecraft, you go to X=0, Z=0, and you find that it corresponds to such-and-such real-world latitude/longitude coordinates.  You could put those coordinates in the config file, and now your GPS shows real-world coordinates!

If you (or anyone else) would want to use a feature like that, let me know and I can try to implement it.  (Can't guarantee a release date, it's been pretty busy recently, but I can keep everyone posted as I progress.)  Cheers,

[Jeff Tillinghast]

Your GPS-to-MC Coordinate map idea is really interesting. We’ve run some projects here where kids work with GIS data that I imported into the world, but navigation is always a challenge since it’s hard for kids to translate the map image in their minds to what it looks like in world.

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[James Shuler]

Looking for this mod for Makerfactory GPS activity.  It looks like their site is down.  Does anyone have the GPS mod and can share it?

[David Hawkins]

Thank you for resurrecting this old post! I never knew this mod existed and my students would love it to help them find locations and each other... It gives them the coordinates without a map which is exactly what I am looking for.  

[Joe Allington]

Hi folks,

Here's an updated link.  I haven't really touched the mod in a while, so if you find any glitches or anything, let me know and I'll see what I can do!

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1jxmt1K55Qr8U-OB1s4w5OXbu2hTJF2S0

Cheers,