51 Trillion Squares was Minecraft Blog 1.0. Started at the suggestion of a good friend who thought I should write up my Minecraft experiences, it became the first platform for ARBTServer before starting the /r/arbtserver subreddit. I’ve included a fair number of the posts here.
And so it began. (Spawn House) March 18, 2015 - So going back exactly 8 months ago to late evening, July 18, 2014. The new update to Minecraft had just dropped for iOS and I was terribly excited. Since I’ve never been a PC player (and have no real interest in starting), this was going to be my first time experiencing infinite worlds, Enderman, biomes, … 
Seuss Library March 21, 2015 - I surf a lot of brutalism galleries. I find the architecture style hideously interesting. It doesn’t help that UMass Amherst isn’t too far from me, so I’m confronted with many intensely ugly buildings on a fairly regular basis. The other fun thing about Brutalism is that examples of it are really fun to make into MCPE … 
Take the train! March 23, 2015 - As part of a weekly challenge about subways on the MCPE subreddit I made a video of my subway. The video’s a little long, boring and dorky, but it does improve about halfway through when Beastie shows up and wants to know what I’m doing.
Wacker Tower March 25, 2015 - I mentioned I liked browsing Brutalism tumblrs and other images for inspiration for Minecraft builds. One day I happened across a pictures of the Blue Cross Blue Shield building in Chicago, IL. The building still stands, although it’s been given a bit of a facelift and the more generic moniker of “55 West Wacker.” (It … 
A world of one’s own March 27, 2015 - One of the reasons I wanted to start a Minecraft blog was to share my experiences with it as a game, a building medium, an adventure, and a platform for particular kinds of social interaction, be it collective, competitive or antagonistic. The game is a unique environment for all of these things. A couple of weeks back, … 
First open MCPE server run! March 28, 2015 - Well, after getting the domain and port forwarding right and figuring out FINALLY how to switch the main world back to Survival (I’ll post a tutorial on both later), I posted a “hey my world’s open, come visit!” notice on /r/MCPE this evening. I wasn’t expecting too many visitors – hell, I would have been happy … 
At the Circus! April 12, 2015 - All right, Crazy Busy-making Stuff is over with for a moment, so time to catch up on posts about my MCPE builds! I finished the circus a hair too late for the Reddit WBC it was created for, but it still came out cool and I’m pretty happy with it. It gave me something to … 
Taking the Scenic Route April 20, 2015 - Most of this weekend’s build work included laying a ~1115 block segment of road running from a brick house* I’d mostly finished a few weeks ago (just had to add the roof) to the mostly unexplored northwestern shoreline. This was slightly more of a pain in the neck than usual (literally at some points throughout … 
The Four Guardians April 21, 2015 - Note: Written before update 1.1.0 when the direction of the sunrise/set was fixed. North here is now west. One of my MCPE builds on Fisher Price® My First Creative World™ was a giant zombie. It was a challenge figuring out what color blocks to use, and working around the fact that unlike skins, blocks have … 
Sightseeing! April 26, 2015 - Note: Written before update 1.1.0 when the direction of the sunrise/set was fixed. North here is now west. Just for laughs last week I took a long wander towards the north on the road with the GUI off taking snapshots of interesting things along the way.
GCT, part 1 & subway expansion April 27, 2015 - Note: Written before update 1.1.0 when the direction of the sunrise/set was fixed. North here is now west. I feel a little bad starting a completely new build when I’m still technically not finished with Bad Joke Prison (I’ll explain it when I post about it), or a lot of the last little fiddly details … 
Comfortable in ones own skin May 1, 2015 - Busy busy busy, working on stuff. GCT is coming along and I will hopefully be able to post a batch of new pictures by the end of the weekend, after I’ve had a few hours to really go nuts with working on it. I know I’ve mentioned that one of the main reasons I’m looking … 
GCT, part 2 and some notes on last week’s open server May 3, 2015 - Note: Written before update 1.1.0 when the direction of the sunrise/set was fixed. North here is now west. Made a fair amount of progress in the past few days on GCT. It’s starting to actually resemble its inspiration now… …well okay, when there aren’t huge holes in the floor/wall. Also there is apparently a HUGE cave … Continue reading "GCT, part 2 and some notes on last week’s open server"
GCT is done! May 14, 2015 - Note: Written before update 1.1.0 when the direction of the sunrise/set was fixed. North here is now west. I kinda fell off the face of the earth in terms of updating various blogs and journals. Sometimes real life (and chronic illness, unfortunately) catches up with me. I want to post on Monday’s server run (it … 
News! May 29, 2015 - Ugh Fell out of the habit of posting here regularly. Going to try to fix that over the weekend. Not too much new to report on the world front other than “Hey! I built some subway tunnels!” Because that’s what I’ve been working on: the two side south tracks, aka the Granite and Brick lines. … 
Ziggurat of Ur June 2, 2015 - While I work on subway tunnels, get caught up on documenting previous builds, and chomp at the bit waiting for 0.11.0 to appear in my update list, I figured I’d post something small, and noticed I haven’t used the Minecraftspiration tag yet. Clearly that needs to be fixed. At some point – not super soon cause … Tonight’s open run June 8, 2015 - Note: Written before update 1.1.0 when the direction of the sunrise/set was fixed. North here is now west. Ah, nothing like the first week after a major update drops. It’s like having a picnic next to a frog pond – so many bugs, lol. My main annoyance is that Plug PE is totally borked after … 
Server and blog news! June 17, 2015 - Note: Written before update 1.1.0 when the direction of the sunrise/set was fixed. North here is now west. I ran twice this week on both Monday and Tuesday nights. There have been some in-world developments. Mt. Servermore is now done (now with four faces and seekrit bat cave!), as is the Granite line of the … Featured Build of the Month: A Witch hut in the Swamps June 18, 2015 - Hello my name is 576875 and I am a regular to ARBT Server. You can call me 5 for short. I am going to start Featured Build of the Month (FBoM) series. Where I show off new and exciting builds on the server. Today I am going to feature a Witch Hut set up in …
Continue reading "Featured Build of the Month: A Witch hut in the Swamps"
Not one, not two, not four, but THREE evening runs! June 25, 2015 - It has been a busy few days on the server between Saturday night and the usual Monday run. After a long busy Saturday I decided after I came home that I was going to put my feet up and play MCPE and I might as well do it with extra company, so I put the … Continue reading "Not one, not two, not four, but THREE evening runs!"
Mt. Servermore is now complete June 27, 2015 - A little over a month a ago I suggested a Mt.Rushmore style pixel art construction. As of today Mt.Servermore is finally complete. At first I was hesitant of my skills as a builder doing pixel art. But with some practice, I felt a bit more confident going into this project. If you are not well … Subway done! (For now, anyway.) June 28, 2015 - Note: Written before update 1.1.0 when the direction of the sunrise/set was fixed. North here is now west. I am pleased and relieved to report that the 2 additional lines of the subway (Granite and Brick) are done. Obviously if there is world expansion to the east or west, the lines will also extend accordingly, … 
Open server, 6/29/2015 June 30, 2015 - Note: Written before update 1.1.0 when the direction of the sunrise/set was fixed. North here is now west. A fairly low key evening was had tonight, with a concentration on finishing up builds people had started earlier. 5 and Swarm finished the minigame arena they’ve been working on. There is spleef, archery, King of the … 
Won’t you take me to… MURDERTOOOOOOOWN! July 5, 2015 - Just putting this here for Reasons. Sing the title along to it, okay? 😀 I was telling Wee Beastie about the time I backed up the server and then said all server rules were off the table and how the area around spawn devolved into mess and murder. He of course thought this sounded like … 
Server time! July 9, 2015 - Monday night your intrepid heroine and host of the server came home with a horrid stomachache, so I canceled server time for that night. To make up for it I ran Wednesday night instead. It was a fairly low key evening with a bit less lag and voidspawning than usual and people mostly worked on … 
Fixing and Protecting a Village: Part 1 July 11, 2015 - With the news of 0.12, zombies are becoming a greater threat to the servers population of villagers. I have always wanted to fix a village up, so with this I decided to start with the Troll Village. When I arrived to the village, I was greeted by the troll and a villager spawner that I … 
Fixing and Protecting a Village: Part 2 July 15, 2015 - The wall the main defense against (zombie) sieges. Any good village needs one. So when there was a secret sunday run, that’s what I decided to do. Thanks to ARBT for helping me with a part of the wall. Also Hachi for the suggestion of the iron bars for the gate. I am planning on … Making a Mob Loot and XP farm in MCPE July 18, 2015 - Note from ARBT (October, 2017): This was an unfinished post on 51 Trillion Squares, but all it’s missing is pictures. Since the mob grinder was a pretty important build, I decided to publish/include it here. Recently, a post was made to the MCPE subreddit by someone showing off their XP mob grinder. When I saw …
Sand Baori July 18, 2015 - A few years ago I went to see The Fall. It’s a gorgeous hot mess of a movie, if anyone’s interested. It’s a Tarsem movie, they’re all gorgeous and weird, and kind of hot messes, lol. Anyway, in among all the gorgeous weirdness, was one particular scene shot on an eye-boggling location. I dismissed it … 
Three Small Builds July 19, 2015 - I’ve been doing small quickie projects in my world just to pass time and fill up space. (Also procrastinating from finishing other stuff.) Finished up three smallish things. The Cabin in the Woods There’s this log cabin style house in Orange, MA on Rte. 202 (its here, if anyone wants to look at it in Google … 
Fixing and Protecting a Village: Part 3 July 21, 2015 - With a somewhat secret sunday run, I decided to continue pecking away with my village project. Unfortunately while preparing for 0.12 in my own world I forgot about making some buildings for the village. So I asked ARBT for some suggestions and she replied with a suggestion for a tavern. So I took the idea … 
Server news, and the Eating of Us by Hai. July 22, 2015 - I ran back to back Sunday and Monday this week, though each run had its own problems to contend with – Sundays was entirely beset by external factors (a movie mid afternoon, a cable service disruption) while Manday’s (what few they were) were entirely game related. But more on that later. Over the two runs, … Continue reading "Server news, and the Eating of Us by Hai."
Featured Build of the Month: Hachi’s Base July 26, 2015 - As July is coming to a close, with it comes exciting news from Minecon, a redesign of the subreddit and many of fun server runs. FBoM is in its 2nd month and is here to highlight Hachi’s base. The first thing I like about this build is the bottom floor with the checkered pattern used … Continue reading "Featured Build of the Month: Hachi’s Base"
Meanwhile on Worst Server Ever… July 30, 2015 - Since /r/WorstServerEver started up a new map last month I’ve been hanging out over there whenever I’m not running game. It’s actually a really nice, laid back Survival server where people hang out, chill, build stuff and complain about chunk lag (which, being a pocketmine server, is kinda expected). I like the regulars there quite …
The Back-From-Hiatus Runs August 4, 2015 - OMG y’all I am SO behind on posting LOL. So a quick recap on what is New, Improved and Different on the ARBTserver: We had a new face from WSE visit on Monday: welcome Kyster! There is now a road extension from the Pyramid, through the huge desert biome and ending at the village Hachi … General server news August 26, 2015 - So things have been a little slow around ARBTland, mostly because I haven’t been online much in the past few weeks. (Stupid real life.) That said, over the past couple of weeks there have been a few changes of note. First of all we got another visitor from WSE – Rudie! Always glad for the …
Featured Build of the Month: A cottage near spawn August 31, 2015 - August is drawing to a close and comes with several new faces from WSE, a blip with the website domain, and many amazing builds being built or just getting started on. Today I would like to highlight, a cottage near spawn. The cottage was built by BatMan3054 and the farm was built by Swarmhut. I … Continue reading "Featured Build of the Month: A cottage near spawn"
A map! Finally! November 8, 2015 - Hey ARBiTors! The blog’s been kinda neglected lately, I apologize. Too many irons in the fire lately, and too intimidating of a backlog of server pictures and posts to do. A quick update before I get to the big news. We’ve been 24 hours for a little less than a month! Well, I say 24 …
More Maps November 10, 2015 - When we last left your fearless leader, I was gleefully sorting through oodles of generated maps of ARBTServer and squeeing about finally having a world map after waiting a year and a half. I haven’t budged much from there, really. The interactive tools are really informative, since you can browse the maps by dimension, depth, … One more quick map post November 11, 2015 - I hit a little bit of a snag with regard to maybe bringing the browser interactive tool to the site – namely that the javascript is still looking for huge files instead of the reasonably sized cropped one. Stay tuned for alternate ideas. Anyway, one more map, this time an enlargement of our densely packed …
Big thank you to all players of ARBTServer who contributed to the blog!