Watch Polygon’s new Minecraft documentary about the kids rebuilding New York

It may be simple to really feel hopeless concerning the state of the world proper now. However each time I walked out of a apply or aggressive session of Battle of the Boroughs, I felt like issues is likely to be OK.

Battle of the Boroughs is New York Metropolis’s public faculty Minecraft match. Groups of youngsters throughout the town compete to create builds that mirror and deal with actual issues that the town is going through. What would the town seem like if everybody had equal entry to wholesome meals? To renewable vitality? What if the Q prepare related to Randall’s Island? The children are reimagining the town and constructing it in Minecraft Education.

Polygon’s new documentary Battle of the Boroughs: The Youngsters Who Construct New York Metropolis in Minecraft follows the 2025 Battle of the Boroughs competitors, from early submissions via the city-wide finals held throughout the NYC Video Game Festival.

We visited faculties, spoke to lecturers, organizers and youngsters, noticed the builds, and witnessed the finals. What we noticed was an inspiration. Lecturers, mother and father, and educators working additional time to create a match that challenges youngsters and provides them a chance to shine below strain, in entrance of a crowd. They apply teamwork, coding, civic planning, and above all, they’re given the facility to think about a metropolis that works for them.

“We attempt to attract as a lot from their very own neighborhood — one of many earlier apply prompts we did was constructing a faculty utilizing sustainable supplies,” instructor Patricia Thams advised me. “It’s like, think about this space. Think about what you’d need.”

In one other faculty I visited, the scholars have been redesigning their faculty with a rooftop backyard the place college students may entry fresh-grown greens and simply hang around. At one other faculty in higher Manhattan, I used to be advised that scholar enter can be taken under consideration throughout transforming.

Empowering college students to guide

It could all begin in school, however the aim is for this empowerment to resonate via the scholars’ civic lives.

Throughout the semifinals and finals, the prompts in 2025 took youngsters out of their neighborhoods and requested them to renovate New York Metropolis landmarks like Governor’s Island.

For one more instructor, Cynthia Andrade, the competitors is a sort-of capstone of her college students’ improvement. They began faculty a couple of years in the past as ESL college students, and ended it giving fluent displays on their Minecraft builds in entrance of crowds of individuals.

“My largest reward and profitable sensible is seeing that they are in a position to rise up in entrance of an viewers, discuss freely about what they’re doing,” she stated. “And I inform them, I am like, “I hope to see you develop up into the younger women and the younger males you’ll turn out to be since you guys are going to do nice issues. I do know it.”

You may watch the complete, 40-minute documentary we produced about Battle of the Boroughs above on YouTube. The subsequent Battle of the Boroughs finals will happen on Could 9 on the Convene, as a part of the NYC Video Sport Competition, and for many who cannot make it, your entire factor will be streamed on Twitch.