Greetings.
I am a man in a suit who has fallen into the world of Minecraft.
Recently, I have been working on the village again.
Last time, I built a dedicated field for the villagers.
This time, I am building an automatic sugar cane farm.
When trading with the beloved librarian villagers, paper becomes very important.
That means sugar cane is important too.
If sugar cane can be collected automatically while I am working around the village, those trades should become much easier.
OjiCra still does not have many redstone contraptions, but this time I will try a little harder.
Redstone Contraptions Are Fun
There is a wonderful ore called redstone in Minecraft.
In the villager field I made last time, pressing a button made water flow so crops could be collected automatically.
Little mechanisms like that are built with redstone.
Making something move with redstone feels a bit like doing a science experiment.
I still do not understand complicated builds very well, though.
A Sugar Cane Farm with Observers and Pistons
So, here is the sugar cane farm project.
The main blocks are observers and pistons.
For the observer, I need cobblestone, redstone, and Nether quartz.
For the piston, I need planks, cobblestone, redstone, and an iron ingot.
Both are fairly manageable materials at this point.
The idea is simple.
An observer watches the block in front of it, and when that block changes, it sends a signal.
By placing redstone behind the observer, that signal can be passed to a piston.
I placed the same setup on both sides.
Sugar cane will be planted on the sand.
When the front sugar cane grows to three blocks high, the piston should activate and break the upper part.
The cut sugar cane needs to be collected by a minecart and sent into a chest.
So I placed rails between the sand rows, with powered rails at both ends.
On the front side, I placed a hopper below the powered rail so items can move into the chest.
With this setup, when the hopper minecart comes over the powered rail at the front, the contents of the minecart’s hopper can move into the chest.
I also placed water beside the sand, because sugar cane needs water nearby.
The minecart needs to move at the same time the sugar cane is cut.
So I arranged the redstone so the signal from the observer also reaches the powered rail at the front.
Finally, I blocked off the inside so I would not wander into the mechanism.
Some sugar cane still falls where it cannot be collected, but enough of it goes into the chest automatically.
When I am working in the village, I can come back and find sugar cane waiting for me.
That is more than enough for this suited man.
That is all for this time.
Greetings.