Video coming soon
Mission 564 hasn’t hit the channel yet. Subscribe and you’ll see it the day it lands.
Build a 4-bulb copper bulb counter that counts from 0 to 15 in binary.
One button. Four bulbs. Press again and again and the machine counts all by itself, in a secret code.
- New skill Chaining copper bulbs into a counter
- Level 6 · Inventor's Lab
- Difficulty Intermediate
- Mode Creative
- Time 40–60 min
- Ages 13+
What you’ll build
Chain four copper bulbs into a machine that counts by itself in binary. Each bulb flips the next one when it switches off, so pressing one button again and again counts from zero all the way up. Read the code, then see what happens after the top.
Finish line: Your four-bulb counter counts from 0 to 15 in binary and rolls back round to 0.
Bonus challenge: Add a fifth bulb (16s) and count to 31. Then challenge someone: you say a number, they must press to it without counting out loud.
You’ll need
- Waxed copper bulbs
- Comparators
- Building blocks
- Redstone torches
- A button
- Signs
You choose
- My machine's name
- Sign style for the 8, 4, 2, 1 labels
- My bet: presses to count to 15
Stuck?
- The torch must sit on the far side of the block the comparator feeds, right beside the next bulb.
- Start at zero: press until every bulb is dark before you begin counting.
- Build and test one stage before copying it, so a mistake doesn't repeat four times.
For grown-ups
Get this mission
This mission is in Mission Pack 56. Each printable has the full steps, a Plan & Log page and a parent page.
Print one mission at a time. You never need to print everything.
Played on Minecraft Bedrock on iPad. Buttons can differ on other devices and versions.