How Do You Make Pistons

No one likes it when random people wander into your home and mess things up, which is why it behooves you to hide your things from even the most prying eyes with builds like this totally invisible, 2x2, piston-operated door with no visible redstone either inside or outside. Th ...more

The video featured in this article demonstrates the function and design of a powerful form of air cannon that operates using a purpose made valve that opens very rapidly. This allows for a massive amount of pressurized air to be released at once to throw a projectile many hund ...more

Did you know that there's a way to start a fire by squishing air? In this project, I'll show you how to build a tool that does exactly that—and I'll give you a sneak peak into the principals of how a diesel engine operates! Video: . In the early 1800s, before the invention of ...more

A travelator, also known as a moving walkway or moving sidewalk, seems like a tricky thing to build in Minecraft, especially when it's zigzagging, but there are really simple autowalks out there (like this one). For this tutorial, I'll be showing you how to make the travelato ...more

This tutorial shows how to make a seamless (undetectable) piston door that opens when you walk towards it. Video: .

Welcome to Minecraft World! Check out our full tutorials and make sure to post to the community forum if you have any questions or cool builds you want to share. All of these tricks were taught as a part of one of our old community workshops for the 1.2.3 update, but the majo ...more

Welcome to Minecraft World! Check out our advanced tutorials and come play with us on our free server. Although Minecraft is a powerful creative tool, it does have limitations. The scarcity of block types and their linear size tends to make the creation of certain detailed ob ...more

Welcome to Minecraft World! Check out our advanced tutorials and come play on our free server. A Minecraft house can have little else cooler than a hidden door. Indeed nothing quite screams accomplished potion master like a hidden lab behind a retractable bookcase. With the a ...more

Welcome to Minecraft World! Check out our advanced tutorials and come play with us on our free server. Do you need an extra boost in your game of PVP? Do you feel unapologetic to creepers? If you enjoy feeling like a madman, then this build is for you. After all, the only thi ...more

Every once in a while, Minecrafters want to create a simple hidden piston door to secretly hide all their valuable items. Now, it's possible with only 18 redstone, 2 repeaters, 12 sticky pistons, and ONLY 20 blocks of any kind! My personal record for building this is 35 secon ...more

Welcome to Minecraft World! Check out our tutorials, post to the community corkboard, and come play on our free server! The workshop this past Saturday was focused around making a Redstone Elevator, and everyone joined in and made their own versions—all very cool and creative ...more

Welcome to Minecraft World! Check out our advanced tutorials and come play with us on our free server. Gathering resources can be an exhausting business. Hours can be spent collecting feathers for arrows or in search of enough Ender pearls to find a stronghold. Luckily with e ...more

Many people get so discouraged by their failures with redstone that they give up using it entirely, or never progress beyond using simple switches. However, by incorporating logic gates into your redstone designs, the applications are nearly limitless. The ability to add multi ...more

This past weekend's workshop on replacing normal levers with buttons masquerading as levers went really well. Lots of players showed up and everyone had a great time. Most importantly, everyone learned how to make and use a T flip-flop! Why bother with a T flip-flop? T flip- ...more

We've already done a tutorial explaining why buttons are superior to levers, but now I want to show you a way to make them even more useful than they already are. You can't get this sort of functionality with levers! A button only emits a one-second (or so) pulse of power. We ...more

Welcome to Minecraft World! Check out our advanced tutorials and come play on our free server. Mining obsidian is not only time consuming, but dangerous. Looking for caves with obsidian and risking death by creeper, zombie, or lava just isn't worth it sometimes. Luckily, obsi ...more

When you're using vacuum power, moving water, or compressing air, it's more than likely being done with some sort of pump. I'll be needing a pump for some of my future projects, so in this tutorial, I'll be showing you how to make your own customizable PVC hand pump that will ...more

A very large aspect of minecraft is redstone. Infact, redstone is probably what keeps me playing minecraft today. Ever since the piston update of beta 1.7, redstone has taken minecraft to a whole new level, with the ability to manipulate the entire world around you with the fl ...more

Minecart rides primarily serve two different functions—transportation or entertainment. We rarely see minecart-based transportation systems in Minecraft these days because most servers support warps or allow users to set multiple homes that they can simply teleport to. That le ...more

Tripwires are a new mechanic released in Minecraft 1.3, and people are still trying to figure out how best to use them. Minecart returns are a great idea, but what about traps? I've constructed examples of my three favorite tripwire traps, and I'll show you how to make them. ...more

Are you tired of having to use two different enchanting tables when you want both low and high enchants? Are you sick and tired of hearing your faction/guild/clan members say that they need lower enchants because they don't have enough experience levels for high-end enchants? ...more

Welcome to Minecraft World! Check out our advanced tutorials and come play on our free server. This past weekend, our Weekly Workshop focused on building a suffocation trap. But today, we're going to be covering a different type of redstone trap in Minecraft—one with a 100% s ...more

This article is dedicated to sugarcane, because we all want more sugarcane in Minecraft. The best way to generate sugar cane is with an automatic reed farm that uses pistons and redstone. The pistons push the canes into the water canal you'll build, then delivers them to the c ...more

There are a few ways to make trapdoors, but out of all of them, this one is my favorite. It's fast, completely hidden, and both opens and closes. This particular trapdoor can be used for a variety of purposes, such as hiding your valuable possessions, having a secret entrance ...more

This design is super simple and is the easiest invisible door that I've ever seen. Unlike designs that use horizontal pistons, the redstone here is completely hidden underground, and the door itself doesn't create an unsightly dip or gap in the wall. Here's what the mechanism ...more

Okay, you can't really become the king of the world by stacking three pistons. For that, you have to stack four pistons. Seriously though, stacking pistons is an incredibly useful thing to know how to do, and it can be used to make invisible doors, hidden staircases, portcull ...more

Welcome to Minecraft World! Check out our advanced tutorials and come play on our free server. As we all know, redstone can be a very useful tool for make basic things in Minecraft more complex and intricate. For beginners to redstone, today's article will give you a basic un ...more

Welcome to Minecraft World! Check out our advanced tutorials and come play on our free server. Harvesting items from animals no longer requires wasting precious time chasing after them. During last Saturday's Weekly Workshop, we built a few different kinds of animal harvester ...more

Welcome to Minecraft World! Check out our advanced tutorials and come play on our free server. A hidden bridge can be both a cool part of your home and a defense against your enemies in PvP! The design is simple, you can use it to create lava traps, and it ensures that no red ...more

Welcome to Minecraft World! Check out our tutorials, post to the community corkboard, and come play on our free server! Looking to build an awesome one-way entrance into your base? Why not create an awesome drawbridge so that no one can enter without your permission? This sty ...more

Welcome to Minecraft World! Check out our advanced tutorials and come play on our free server. One of the most efficient crops to grow in Minecraft is the melon. While not the best at boosting your health meter, melons require little work and they take about as long as wheat ...more

In Minecraft, a large aspect of the game is PVP (Player vs. Player Combat). A hardcore Minecraft fan will remember that back in Beta 1.8, combat was switched up, and it really changed the game around. Here are some tips on what a two-year Minecraft player has to say. Step 1: ...more

Welcome to Minecraft World! Check out our advanced tutorials and come play on our free server. And don't miss this weeks Weekly Workshop! If you're anything like the typical Minecrafter, then you've got a few secrets to hide. Maybe it's valuable commodities like diamonds, ore ...more

Are you looking to hide your chests in a not-so-conspicuous way, but don't know where to start? Do you want to finally have that safe and sacred place to store your diamonds, cake and beloved treasures? This tutorial incorporates this previous week's challenge on transforming ...more

Welcome to Minecraft World! Check out our advanced tutorials and come play on our free server. You may know that Minecraft is an excellent creative tool, but perhaps less well known are the fascinating array of redstone powered games that have been made by players like you. ...more

Welcome to Minecraft World! Check out our tutorials, post to the community corkboard, and come play on our free server! The workshop last Saturday revolved around creating a working movie screen in Minecraft, and everyone joined in to see how it works. But this tutorial is fo ...more

Welcome to Minecraft World! Check out our tutorials, post to the community corkboard, and come play on our free server! Functioning bathrooms seem like a stretch in Minecraft, but with redstone, they're not that far out of reach! This past workshop focused on creating a fully ...more

Welcome to Minecraft World! Check out our tutorials, post to the community corkboard, and come play on our free server! Our previous workshop on building an automatic boat dock went really well. A lot of Minecrafters showed up and everyone got right to work on their own versi ...more

Are you tired of wasting diamonds and iron on creating hoes? Are you looking for a fun way to farm melons? Or do you simply want to show off to your friends? This tutorial will go over how to make a jaw-dropping semiautomatic melon farm. Not only will you be the talk of the se ...more

Welcome to Minecraft World! Check out our advanced tutorials and come play on our free server. Redstone gives you the power to construct an endless number of possible machines, mechanisms, and devices. With redstone one can move more efficiently, send messages long distance, ...more

As I said before in my earlier post on how to make a two-tone doorbell, sound is more than just music. Note blocks can create a wide variety of notes and sounds, and those can be used for more than just making a stirring rendition of "Still Alive" from Portal. In this tutoria ...more

There are many impressive accomplishments in Minecraft, too many to name in fact. Sprawling builds, complex machines, and massive servers are the hallmark of Minecraft and things keep getting bigger and better. No one doubts the epic scale Minecraft has reached, but every once ...more

Only a few people turned out for last week's workshop on Saturday, but they were all interested in learning this technique for hiding secret stashes with ordinary blocks. After that was covered, we even went on to teach each other different designs afterward! It was a great le ...more

Minecraft's monsters are so annoyingly tenacious and effective that anyone who plays in survival mode can't help but hate them. That's why we're here to tell you how to kill them! In this tutorial, we'll teach you how to harness a unique property of lava to create blades that ...more

Have you ever built a fancy redstone contraption just to find out that it needs those large clunky levers in order to work? Well, have no fear because there is a more complex method for fixing that problem. It is known as a T Flip-Flop and it can be the love of your life. Now, ...more

Welcome to Minecraft World! Check out our tutorials, post to the community corkboard, and come play on our free server! A moving walkway could be a great addition to a courtyard, airport, or even a mansion. It's very unique and simple to do! If you end up incorporating this t ...more

Redstone and electricity have much in common. They both have what's called resistance. That is, they only travel a certain distance before the signal degrades to the point where it's unusable, and they take a certain amount of time to get there. With electricity, that time is ...more

Welcome to Minecraft World! Check out our tutorials, post to the community corkboard, and come play on our free server! I spent the entire day yesterday wandering through and getting incredibly lost in last week's maze creations for the Weekly Challenge. The crafted labyrinth ...more

Levers are the only toggleable way to provide a steady source of power to your redstone circuits, but they're ugly and they stick out like a sore thumb. Just look at this: What looks better? An elegant button or the huge lever that practically calls out to thieves, "Pull me! ...more

Welcome to Minecraft World! Check out our advanced tutorials and come play on our free server. Redstone can add a lot of exciting effects to your gameplay, but not all usage of redstone has to be flashy to achieve a cool effect. For this Saturday's Weekly Workshop, we're goin ...more

This Week's Workshop: Music To My Ears The heart of WonderHowTo's Minecraft World is, naturally, “How-To” and so in the spirit of all things tutorial and DIY we will be hosting a weekly workshop showcasing the best and newest tutorials, builds, and inspiring ideas. We hope to ...more

Notes: My guides are setup like old Lego instruction booklets; picture intense/text lacking. Just remember you're building from the ground up, each step is a layer to go onto the previous layer. Any stone block can be replaced with blocks of your choice. Mycelium is used in ...more

Welcome to Minecraft World! Check out our advanced tutorials and come play on our free server. Have you grown tired of the standard "Mojang Doors" that are vastly overused? Are you interested in learning an alternative piston door method? Well, this week's Saturday workshop w ...more

WonderHowTo is a how-to website made up of niche communities called Worlds, with topics ranging from Minecraft to science experiments to Scrabble and everything in-between. Check in every Wednesday evening for a roundup of user-run activities and how-to projects from the most ...more