YouTube Channel Review: Etho's Lab

Etho is the best! My daughter and I enjoy watching Etho's Lab. I've watched every single episode he's ever made.

Originally, he caught my attention because his videos were predominantly technical. His early builds were less focused on looking nice, and more focused on function.

This appeals to my programming interests. In Minecraft, there's a feature called Redstone that allows the player to construct logic circuits. It's very much like programming.

In fact, besides the official features of Redstone, there are several bugs in the game that make it even more interesting. Some of these bugs have been patched over time, while others have been officially converted into features.

One of the bug/features in Minecraft is called quasi-connectivity. In the game, if you place certain machines next to certain redstone combinations, you get some neat outcomes.

For quasi-connectivity, the result is the ability to detect events in the game. Originally, redstone builds weren't able to detect if a tree grew, for example. But with quasi-connectivity, you can. Later, it became possible to detect tree growth by other means. But we were having fun with the game physics before these changes.

Etho was one of the first youtubers to describe quasi-connectivity. He calls them 'BUD switches' (block update detection).

One of the things Etho has always been fascinated with in Minecraft is boat mechanics. Often, his designs will incorporate a boat even if there's an easier way to do it. But this also causes problems later on because the developers are always tweaking boat mechanics.

If you watch his early videos, it was all about boats. He had a complicated boat dispenser mechanism years before it was officially added to the game. His build took up multiple rooms of redstone and boat stacks.

Etho's channel also features a few recurring characters like Sgt. Spaz, the leader of the creepers. There's also Wilson, a redstone-based Giga Pet that always dies from neglect.

His channel is one of the few gaming channels that is G-Rated. I really appreciate the effort he's gone to in making sure I can watch his show with my daughter.

In Etho's latest episode, he really goes all out with redstone.

Etho Plays Minecraft - Episode 465: Musical Madness