Main Resources & Parts, Schematics 3D Models.

Prototyped using: Axiometa HAAI

Genesis Platform: Axiometa Genesis OneParts used: 


The Question

Minecraft left a mark on a lot of people. The building, the servers, the late nights. Most of that is gone now, but the soundtrack isn't. C418 still does something specific to your brain, and at some point I stopped being able to ignore it.

So the question became: can I build something that brings that feeling back in a physical, interactive form? Not a replica. Something that actually does things.

Turns out yes. But it took a while.

The Display

Every Minecraft character face is an 8x8 grid. That made the display choice obvious 8x8 WS2812B matrices. The less obvious part was making them myself.

Each display PCB uses a serpentine LED layout with a 100nF decoupling cap per LED and a 3-pin JST connector for daisy chaining. Four of them stack inside a 3D printed enclosure. To avoid glue I designed an expandable friction-fit pusher that locks all four displays against the walls once inserted. No adhesive, no fasteners. Just pressure.

Three Modes

Mode 1 - Drawing canvas. The cube hosts its own WiFi access point. Connect from your phone, open genesis.local, draw a face pixel by pixel, hit save. It writes directly to the SD card.

Mode 2 - Slideshow. The cube boots up, loads all saved faces from the SD card, and cycles through them autonomously. Fade speed and dwell time are configurable. C418 loops on the audio module in the background. Fully standalone no phone, no computer required.

Mode 3 - Mining. An ICM-20948 accelerometer detects taps. Tap a mob and it takes damage. Hit it enough times and it breaks, drops XP. Works on ores and blocks too. You can mine a diamond on your desk between meetings. I don't make the rules.

Firmware Prototyping

The firmware was initially prototyped using Genesis an AI-powered Arduino IDE I'm building. Described what I needed, got working code, flashed straight from the browser. Useful when you have a clear vision and limited patience for boilerplate. Once the logic was confirmed I moved everything onto the PIXIE M1 and soldered it all down.

The PCBs

Every PCB in this build is custom designed in KiCad, I have shared all schematics and Models on my website