A bitmapped image of Edward Shturman

d.craft

To those unfamiliar — certainly to the parents of players — d.craft may seem like just a Minecraft server. But in the midst of a pandemic, it was an extension of the community at Design Tech High School ("d.tech" for short). A place where students could be themselves and make friends, at a time when both were very difficult. It was my first foray into bringing both teams and communities together. And by the end of it, I realized, this is what I wanted to do: ship projects people love, and bring people together around them.

Here's the story of how we brought d.craft to life — a virtual recreation of the Design Tech High School campus in Minecraft.

A screenshot of d.craft, facing the Design Tech High School front entrance

Culture

I'm very fortunate to have fond memories from my time at d.tech. I can only describe the place as if it were the brainchild of the Stanford d.school (Hasso Plattner Institute of Design), IDEO, and modern startups.

Well, that's sort of exactly what it is: our founders worked directly with them to figure out what education should look like. The curriculum puts heavy emphasis on design thinking and other soft skills that are becoming more and more tangible today. There is a palpable air of experimentation, prototyping, and self-direction.

Until January 2018, we occupied a warehouse in Millbrae we lovingly called the "Hangar". Classrooms were really just the space sectioned by makeshift walls, composed of floating whiteboards and wood from our makerspace. We then moved into Oracle's campus in Redwood Shores.

Intersession

Four times a year, we'd have Intersession: a two-week break from regular classes to deep dive into guest-led workshops (e.g. productivity & happiness), skills (e.g. Korean martial arts), or self-directed projects.

From May 2019, my incredibly talented friend Joss and I would lead Intersession cohorts with our friends and build the school, block by block (pun intended).

d.craft started out as an inside joke of a project: we'd leave school and "come right back", virtually. But in the first week of the May–June 2019 Intersession, we held interviews with students and staff, and quickly realized this could be something bigger.

The team goes over considerations for building a safe online community with a d.tech staff member

There were a few things on our minds:

The whiteboard at the end of one of our interviews with d.tech staff, discussing the considerations mentioned above

Laptops in hand, half the team set out walking around the school to build it to-scale, while the other half of us devised implementations for the community. This latter task would take us quite some time and iteration to get right.

It was building d.verify — a tool that linked students' Google accounts with their profiles on our Discord server — that convinced me to study computer science in university. The feeling of solving a problem no one else had solved yet, and the solution being intuitive, familiar, and fun to people, was incredibly empowering.

We knew we wouldn't be able to do a full launch just yet, so our goal for these two weeks was to complete a first build of the school.

Thanks to Jordan, Rohan, Ian, Aidan C., Darius, John, and Luke, we got it done.

A screenshot of d.craft, facing the school entrance, from June 2019
d.craft June 2019 trailer
My apologies in advance for the jittering — this is before I knew how to screen record properly

Watch on YouTube

In the months that followed, the team worked on:

A screenshot of Oracle Parkway on d.craft
A screenshot of a custom-made Bedwars map on d.craft
A screenshot of a custom-made Factions map on d.craft

Launch

The timing is almost poetic: we launched d.craft exactly a week before our school would close its doors due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

We presented d.craft at our weekly community meeting. I will never forget the awe, cheer, and d.tech pride from everyone in the room. I'm pretty sure I teared up after the standing ovation. :)

A screenshot from March 2020 taken on d.craft of the school from above
d.craft March 2020 trailer

Watch on YouTube

Props to Joss, Rohan, Ryan, Elan, David, Logan Y., and Carson for getting us there.

Graduation

d.tech continued to run Intersessions through the pandemic months, and the team kept at it. Our first major project after launch was a virtual graduation for the class of 2020. We knew it wasn't what they wanted, but we sought out to make it as special as we could.

We storyboarded, programmed (using Minecraft's "datapacks" language), and built three unique events for a night of celebration and reminiscence:

We asked staff to write speeches, and streamed the event on YouTube.

Shoutout to Joss, Jordan, Ian, Ryan, Elan, Aidan H., Logan J., Andrew, Paul, Jett, and Zackie for making this happen.

Winter

In the Summer 2020 months and into Fall, we struggled with getting returning players online. Fortunately, a new wave of freshmen meant new players, eager to play since they couldn't go visit the campus in person.

Unfortunately, we were no longer able to host Intersession cohorts, due to a change in how d.tech ran them.

We continued to maintain the server in our free time, and even held some one-off events, like our Winter celebration.

A screenshot of the Winter map (exterior) on d.craft
A screenshot of the Winter map (interior) on d.craft
A screenshot of the Winter map (dragon) on d.craft

Sunset

Being in our senior year of high school, Joss and I had to switch gears to finding successors. Unfortunately, though, with a lack of new content coming out, player numbers dwindled. We eventually had to make the tough call to archive the project by the time we graduated in May 2021.

Lessons

Running d.craft taught me a lot about leading a team, branding & marketing, and what I wanted to do for at least the next four years of my life. Naturally, I made mistakes along the way. Here's what I would advise in avoiding them:

There is a world in which d.craft lives on. And, when that happens, I'll be there to support it. Until then, it's me and the team, hitting Return to Main Menu.

A screenshot of the d.craft team in-game