CONTRAPTIONS
Step-by-step build guides for redstone contraptions. From beginner-friendly farms to expert vault doors.
A contraption is a finished machine: a door that opens itself, a farm that harvests without you, a sorter that files your chests. This page has 19, in 6 groups: 4 doors & entrances, 4 automatic farms, 2 storage & sorting, 3 transport, 4 utility and 2 weapons & defense.
They are graded 9 beginner, 7 intermediate and 3 advanced, and together they carry 142 numbered build steps. Every parts list on this site is priced out in raw ingredients, so you know what a build costs before you start digging rather than halfway through.
Start at the top of the table if you are new: a beginner build with a small footprint teaches the same timing lessons as a large one, and mistakes cost you a handful of blocks instead of an afternoon.
Doors & Entrances
Hidden passages, piston doors, and secret entrances.
2x2 Piston Door
A flush 2x2 piston door that opens and closes smoothly. The four blocks retract into the floor and ceiling (or sides) when activated. One of the most common redstone door designs.
3x3 Piston Door
A 3x3 flush piston door where all 9 blocks retract smoothly. Requires careful timing so corner blocks move before edge blocks. A signature build for intermediate redstone engineers.
Hidden Staircase
A flat floor that transforms into a staircase when activated. Sticky pistons push stair blocks up in a cascading sequence, creating steps from a seemingly normal floor.
Vault Door (4x4)
A massive 4x4 piston door that opens with dramatic flair. Blocks spiral outward or retract in layers. Requires advanced timing and understanding of piston push limits.
Automatic Farms
Self-harvesting farms for crops, mobs, and resources.
Automatic Sugarcane Farm
A zero-maintenance sugarcane farm. Observers detect when sugarcane grows to height 3 and trigger pistons to break the top blocks. Items fall into water channels leading to hoppers and chests.
Automatic Wheat/Crop Farm
A semi-automatic crop farm using a water flush system. A dispenser releases water across the farmland, breaking all mature crops. Items flow to a collection point with hoppers.
Mob Farm / Grinder
A dark room spawner that spawns hostile mobs in dark platforms, flushes them with water into a central shaft, and drops them to lethal fall height. Produces XP and mob drops passively.
Automatic Bamboo Farm
The simplest automatic farm. One observer watches bamboo growth, triggers one piston to break it. Bamboo grows fast, making this an excellent fuel source when crafted into bamboo planks.
Storage & Sorting
Item sorters, storage systems, and inventory management.
Item Sorter
A single sorting slice that filters one item type from a hopper line. Uses a comparator to detect when the filter hopper has extra items, then unlocks the bottom hopper to send them to storage. Tileable for full sorting systems.
Bulk Storage System
A large-scale storage system with labeled chests organized by category. Uses hopper chains to distribute incoming items to the appropriate chest sections. Item frames label each chest.
Transport
Elevators, rail systems, flying machines, and travel systems.
Piston Elevator
A piston-based elevator that lifts or lowers players between floors. Uses a cascading piston sequence to raise a platform block by block.
Flying Machine
A self-propelling machine that flies in one direction using observers and pistons on slime blocks. Observers detect piston movement, triggering the cycle to repeat. The foundation for tunnel borers and world eaters.
Minecart Station
A proper minecart station with arrival detection, automatic braking, and button-activated departure. The detector rail senses arriving carts and brakes them at the station.
Utility
Automated crafting, smelting, brewing, and other utility builds.
Automatic Smelter Array
An array of furnaces fed by hoppers that automatically distributes items to smelt and collects the output. Scales from 1 to 16+ furnaces. Uses no redstone, purely hopper mechanics.
Automatic Potion Brewer
An automated brewing system that feeds ingredients into a brewing stand in sequence and collects finished potions. Requires precise timing to add ingredients in the correct order.
Automatic Composter
Feeds compostable items into a composter automatically and collects bone meal output. Zero redstone required, uses only hoppers. Perfect companion for crop farms.
Cobblestone Generator
Generates infinite cobblestone where water meets lava. An observer detects the new cobblestone and a piston pushes it into a line for collection. Fully automatic and self-sustaining.
Weapons & Defense
TNT cannons, arrow turrets, and defensive mechanisms.
TNT Cannon
A cannon that uses TNT charges to launch a TNT projectile over long distances. Water prevents the charge TNT from destroying the cannon. Timing is critical, the projectile must ignite after the charge.
Arrow Dispenser Turret
A rapid-fire arrow turret using a dispenser on a clock circuit. Shoots arrows automatically at a set rate. Can be triggered by tripwires or pressure plates for defensive perimeters.
All 19 redstone contraptions compared
Every build with its group, its difficulty, its footprint, how many steps it takes and what it costs in crafting ingredients.
| Build | Group | Difficulty | Size | Steps | Ingredients |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Doors & Entrances | beginner | 2W x 2H x 3D (visible) + redstone... | 7 | 22 |
| Doors & Entrances | intermediate | 3W x 3H x 5D minimum | 8 | 70 |
| Doors & Entrances | intermediate | 1W x varies x varies (depends on... | 7 | 38 |
| Doors & Entrances | advanced | 4W x 4H x 7D minimum | 8 | 128 |
| Automatic Farms | beginner | Varies (tileable, typically 1x8... | 8 | 92 |
| Automatic Farms | beginner | 9W x 9L x 2H | 8 | 30 |
| Automatic Farms | intermediate | 20W x 20L x 30H minimum | 8 | 136 |
| Automatic Farms | beginner | 1W x 1L x 4H | 7 | 32 |
| Storage & Sorting | intermediate | 1W x 5L x 4H per slice (tileable) | 8 | 53 |
| Storage & Sorting | intermediate | Varies (typically a full room) | 7 | 837 |
| Transport | intermediate | 3W x 3L x varies per floor height | 7 | 66 |
| Transport | advanced | 1W x 5-7L x 2H (basic design) | 8 | 67 |
| Transport | beginner | 3W x 8L x 2H | 7 | 26 |
| Utility | beginner | 2W x 8L x 4H (for 8 furnaces) | 8 | 240 |
| Utility | advanced | 3W x 5L x 6H | 8 | 118 |
| Utility | beginner | 1W x 1L x 5H | 6 | 35 |
| Utility | beginner | 3W x 5L x 2H | 7 | 32 |
| Weapons & Defense | intermediate | 3W x 8L x 3H | 8 | 163 |
| Weapons & Defense | beginner | 2W x 3L x 2H | 7 | 71 |
Questions about redstone contraptions
Which redstone build should a beginner start with?
One of the 9 marked beginner, and the cheapest of those is the 2x2 Piston Door. A beginner build here still uses real timing and real piston limits, so nothing you learn on it goes to waste on a bigger one.
What is the cheapest redstone contraption to build?
The 2x2 Piston Door, at 22 crafting ingredients in total. The most expensive is the Bulk Storage System at 837, and most of that is one material rather than many.
How many of these builds use pistons?
9 of the 19 use a piston or a sticky piston, and 4 use an observer. Those two blocks are what most redstone machines are really made of, and both have their own page with the push limit and the pulse length they need.
Which redstone build has the most steps?
The 3x3 Piston Door, at 8 steps and a footprint of 3W x 3H x 5D minimum. Build it a stage at a time and test each stage before you chain the next one.
Do these contraptions still work in the current version?
Yes. The oldest design here goes back to Minecraft 1.0+ and it still runs in 26.2; every page says from which version its build has worked. Redstone rarely breaks between versions, but piston timing and quasi-connectivity are the two things to check after an update.
