SAN ANTONIO – A Texas-based YouTuber named Eric, known for his channel Mogswamp, says he has spent more than 500 hours of gameplay and over a year of planning for his latest video, in which he recreated the iconic downtown Tower Life building in Minecraft.
“I’m always trying to one-up myself and go bigger and bigger and basically just share my creativity with people at the end of the day,” Eric said.
Eric lives in Austin and regularly visits San Antonio. He says during his trips, he slowly began to notice more and more details of the brown and green-colored building peeking out over the San Antonio skyline, the fifth tallest building in town.
“Right away, I just fell in love with the building. You can see it from so far away. Anywhere you’re at in the city, you can see this building. For me, it was the green terracotta roof just poking out. I was just so intrigued by it,” he said. “And so, the more I learned about it, the more intrigued I became because it’s got a really rich history. It just sort of bubbled over into a little miniature obsession until I had to recreate it.”
Eric began looking at drone footage of the tower, researching the history behind it, diving into blueprints and building materials from UTSA, and taking pictures himself to recreate the work.
“I think it’s a good almost metaphor for anything in life. If you can just spend the time and really commit to it, you can accomplish really your wildest dreams,” he said.
At the San Antonio Museum of Science and Technology (SAMSAT), lead STEM educator Giselle De Leon said she thinks the future of education is meeting kids where their interests are.
“We use a special kind of Minecraft called Minecraft Education, where it helps bridge the gap with other subjects as well,” De Leon said. “So not just engineering but chemistry, cybersecurity, and plenty of other things as well. So I love that this is a wonderful tool that not only kids get excited about but are engaged in being able to learn topics that maybe otherwise they wouldn’t have been so excited about.”
SAMSAT is offering summer camps for kids throughout the summer that merge technology with education, including a Minecraft-specific week.
“It is a brand-new kind of bridge that educators are now acknowledging that this is a way to close the gap for some students that otherwise maybe would have struggled in traditional academia,” De Leon said.
Right now, the Tower Life building is undergoing construction to turn empty office floors into apartment units. You can still see the building along the San Antonio skyline.
