TOWAMENCIN: As the senior year wraps up for hundreds of students at North Penn, many choose to document time in high school through different ways, such as photography, video or writing; but one North Penn senior decided to do so in an unusual way, through building a detailed recreation of the high school in Minecraft. 

“Honestly, why not [build the recreation]? Minecraft has been a favorite game of mine since I first played it nearly ten years ago. In ninth grade, I recreated Pennfield in Minecraft and received a lot of positive feedback, so it seemed only natural to move on to recreate North Penn High School,” North Penn senior, Jason Dodge stated. 

By using Google Earth 3D view as a reference for the exterior of the building and campus, floor plans and a mix of notes and photos, Dodge was able to create a very detailed recreation of the high school in the video game. As a part of his reference notes, Dodge created a Google Sheet where he recorded the wall colors and floor color of every classroom, hallway and stairwell in the building. Due to the high school’s immense size and detail, the project took a significant amount of time to complete; taking up three years, and over 180 in-game hours. In addition to this, Dodge also received suggestions from Rayat Karim.

Gallery • 3 Photos

Jason Dodge

The North Penn lobby

“The hardest part of the project was the sheer scale of it. The high school is so large that it took a huge amount of time to achieve the level of detail I desired. After I completed the Pennfield project in about three months, I expected to finish the High School project in about a year, but it ended up taking three years,” Dodge explained.

From A-Pod to K-Pod, every aspect of the high school was recreated in great detail. The classrooms, hallways, common areas, sports fields, and even the parking lots are all as accurate as possible within the confines of the game. Of course, not every area of the high school was equally difficult to complete, and some areas posed a greater challenge than others. 

“The most interesting and difficult area to recreate was Crawford Stadium because it does not sit at a right angle to the building. I had to think about a lot of geometry to build the stadium on a diagonal in a game full of squares. In the end, I’m really satisfied with how it turned out,” Dodge stated. 

If you are interested in exploring this recreation for yourself, the link for the world download file is listed in the youtube video description.