For a second year, the Computer Technology Committee (CTC) is managing a Minecraft server, a multi-player experience for the best-selling game Minecraft, open to all Parker students to play together.

Minecraft, according to its creators, is a sandbox video game based around a world of pixelated “blocks,” with which players can build — alone, or with friends on a server — anything they desire. Minecraft, recently acquired by tech giant Microsoft, is increasingly used in academic situations as a platform to teach students collaboration, creativity, and even, in special versions of the game, topics such as math and chemistry.

Wil Rantala, one of the heads of the CTC for the past two years, was one of the creators of the current Minecraft server, which first opened May 2019. “We thought about it towards the end of the year,” Rantala said. “Last year, we were all like ‘okay, well, we can’t just do game nights over and over. So let’s do something.’ So we made the server.”

Rantala and fellow CTC heads were inspired by a previous server managed by the CTC committee in years prior. “Before we were heads of CTC, two years ago … they had a CTC Minecraft server that they would all play on, just having fun,” said Rantala. Rantala hopes that students now can have the same positive experience that he had at the start of high school.

Sophomore Finn Hall played on the CTC Minecraft server when it was first created and has played on it a few times since. “The CTC Minecraft server is cool because you get to play a nostalgic and fun game with your friends, as well as other people in the school you might not know so well,” Hall said.

Rantala recalls being amazed that, only a short while after the server had first opened, students across the high school began to work together to build castles, farms, and more. “It was hilarious to see how much they could accomplish together in just one day,” Rantala said.

To the surprise of many users of the server, the CTC server is not paid for by the school but rather by the CTC heads, according to Rantala. “I think the school should probably fund it,” sophomore Finn Hall said. “It’s made for the school so the CTC committee could probably use some of their budget to pay for it instead of the heads paying for it themselves.” The server costs $10 a month to run, totaling $100 per school year, a sum well within the budget of the CTC.

Upper School Operations Coordinator and CTC faculty advisor Lisa Williams agrees with Hall that the CTC heads should take steps to have the school pay for the server, especially if they want the server to continue to exist in the coming years. “If they wanted it to be something on a bigger scale then … they could still talk to me, their advisor, or Mr. Evans, and explore the options for making it bigger and better,” Williams said. Williams believes that having the school pay for the server would make it a longer-term installation for future students to enjoy, and not one run on a whim by a given year’s CTC heads.

But Rantala expects the server to continue running for at least the rest of the year and hopes that future CTC heads will continue to manage a Parker Minecraft server  — though there is little plan in place to do so. “I hope they keep it going. It’s a fun tradition just to have, even if it’s not used that much, it’s fun just to have around.”