The Long
Aqueduct

Everybody builds the same stone arch in their own 16×16 plot. Line the plots up and the arches join into one enormous viaduct carrying a river across the whole world — the same way the Romans moved water into their cities, one identical span at a time.

A bridge that carries water instead of traffic. Roman engineers built them two thousand years ago to bring fresh water into cities from springs in the hills. The Pont du Gard in France is nearly 50 metres tall and still standing. Some Roman aqueducts ran for a hundred kilometres.

Water only moves downhill, so the channel had to drop just a few centimetres every hundred metres — the whole distance. Too steep and it wrecks the stonework. Too flat and it stops. Getting it right took hundreds of people building to one shared measurement.

Why this build, this week

Claiming a plot

Walk the row, find the first plot with no name sign on it, and put yours on the front-left corner. Stand with the path behind you — that is the direction everybody builds — then work left to right across the front of the plot.

The big idea

A stone arch, 16 blocks wide and 5 blocks deep, with a water channel running over the top. It takes about half an hour.

Half a pier sits on your left edge and half on your right. Your half plus your neighbour's half make one fat pier.

Four arches make a span over a creek. Forty run past the render distance. You will probably never watch the whole thing go up — you just come back another day and find it longer.

How your unit fits

However many turn up

An empty plot is not a problem. The water simply stops there and carries on once somebody builds it. If you want the river running before you log off, fill the gap with a plain solid pier — a solid plot is just a thicker column, and the arch can go in later. Leave the plot unsigned, though: it is still theirs to build.

If you are on the end of the row, add one extra thing: fill your outer half-pier out to a full pier and run a short ramp down to the ground. Two minutes, and the row stops looking cut off. Somebody can always extend past you later.

Parts list · one unit

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Any stone-ish block works — deepslate bricks, sandstone, bricks, blackstone. Have a look at the arch next to yours and match it, so the row reads as one structure. If the row is empty, pick whatever you like and the next person will follow you.

In Creative you can hold down place and walk backwards along a row instead of clicking each block. Every layer here is a straight line.

Before the steps

Tells you which of the three pictures to use for this step. Read this first.

A numbered list. One action per line, in order. Nothing is hidden between the lines.

One thing to count or look at. If it is true, the step is right and you can move on.

What to do if the check did not work. Nothing is broken and nobody is in trouble.

Front, Above and Side are on every step, always in that order. The one you need has a green Use this one tag.

The numbers around the edge count blocks, so you can count along instead of guessing.

Tick the box at the bottom of a step when you finish it. This page remembers where you were, so you can close it mid-build and come back to the same step tomorrow.

Counting out loud. Checking the same thing twice. Doing the identical move sixteen times in a row. That is not being slow — that is exactly how this build is meant to be done.

Read the If it looks wrong box first. If it still will not work, leave it and come back to it, or ask in chat. Nothing here is a test, and every mistake is a block you can break.

The whole build at a glance

How far are you going today?

Decide now, before you start. Picking a finish line is the whole skill — and any of these three is a good answer.

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Your ticks are saved on this device. Close the page mid-build and it opens on the same step.

Clear ticks

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Now check your edges

Before you log off

Thirty seconds. Nobody marks these — they are for you, and they make the next build easier.

Got time left? Three add-ons

Appendix

Spares bench

Eight more units that follow the same rules, for a week that needs swapping out.

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