A Flying Machine Is One Way to Get Creative in 'Minecraft'

There are numerous items and blocks to uncover and craft with in Minecraft — and the more you understand the blocks and how they work together, the more creative you can get with your builds. There are thousands of home base designs on YouTube, and many have used the game's sandbox capabilities to replicate entire maps just for fun.

But if you're looking to get creative in your own world and find new ways to traverse your island, you may want to consider building a flying machine. But how do you make one?

Flying machines navigate above the ground level, moving through the sky until they're stopped. There's a variety of ways to use them, but many players use them to ride across their map with ease.

If you really want to build a flying machine in Minecraft, you'll first need to scout out all of the necessary materials before you begin your building process. Some of these blocks are a bit harder to find than others, so it may take some time to obtain them all.

To build a flying machine, you'll need:

• Pistons (either regular or sticky)
• Immovable blocks (like obsidian)
• Redstone blocks (not just Redstone)
• Observers
• Slime blocks OR
• Honey blocks

For the most part, you can use the same items when building a flying machine whether you're playing in the Java or Bedrock edition, as there's not much variation in the builds between versions of the game.

You can watch any number of tutorials online detailing how to craft a flying machine in the game, but we're just going to break down the basic model. Once you understand how the different components work together, you can get creative to make it work for you in your Minecraft world.

To start, you'll want to lay some solid blocks, like cobblestone, in a column as high up as you want your flying machine to be. From there, place the observer next to the top block so the red button is facing in the direction you want it to move.

In the Bedrock edition of Minecraft, place a sticky piston next to the observer so it's facing away from the direction you want to move (if you want to travel south, have it facing to the north, for example). Place two slime or honey blocks next to the sticky piston and two more on one side of both the observer and the sticky piston so it begins to form a rectangle. In the remaining two spots, place another observer in the corner and a regular piston facing the direction you want to travel.

In the Java edition of the game, you'll want to place two sticky pistons instead of one regular piston.

To get the flying machine to stop, you'll want to put your immovable blocks, like obsidian, in its path. Once it reaches the blocks, it should come to a halt. Swap the pistons to change the direction of the flying machine. If you place a trap door next to the immovable blocks you use to stop the flying machine, you can just open and close it to get it to move again.