Minecraft Redstone For Dummies, Portable Edition

Chapter 2

Getting Started with Redstone Programming

In This Chapter

Obtaining redstone dust

Arranging redstone dust to create circuits

Crafting special redstone items: torches, repeaters, and comparators

Powering blocks

Understanding how redstone works can be difficult because few games allow you to program whatever you want from raw ingredients. This chapter helps you program your first basic machines (from linking levers and doors to building simple locks) with the power of redstone dust. I also describe the fundamentals of using redstone throughout Chapters 3 and 4, but this chapter is a good starting point for new players.

Gathering Redstone Dust

In Creative mode in Minecraft, redstone supplies are freely available. However, if you’re playing Minecraft in Survival mode, you need to gather the materials necessary to build your circuit. The most fundamental tool you need is the redstone dust item. Redstone dust can be not only used raw as a simple machine but also crafted into many other redstone-based devices.

To get redstone dust, you need to mine redstone ore. In Figure 2-1 ...