Shadowing Practice: Overengineering Ceiling Fans in Minecraft - Learn English Speaking with Video

3, 2, 1, and it's on.

Wow, okay, that's crazy, all right.

This is a ceiling fan made by a YouTuber called Pewtron in this video.

And instantly, I knew I just had to make that using redstone.

But how would that even be possible?

Like, how can you move fan blades below the ceiling without it looking, well, horrendous?

And can you actually make it look as smooth as a real ceiling fan?

Well, after weeks of trial and error, I think I finally made a design that is as close to perfect as you can get with Vanilla Redstone.

Yeah, I'm gonna be going through the process of how I made each one of the designs, and at the end, you will see the newest design.

Alright, perfect.

Alright, so this is the design I wanted to build.

Like, if I could make something like this, I would be happy with that.

It's not as flashy as your design.

Yours was, like, 5 white.

Yeah, yeah.

And this is just, like, a 3x3.

No, it's still really impressive, yeah.

But there is an immediate problem because how are you supposed to move these fan blades?

You could use pistons like this to move them around.

But uh, yeah, it's kind of ugly.

Right, right, because you would see the piston heads behind the drive there, yeah.

And I don't think many real ceiling fans have giant pistons moving the fan blades.

That's true, yeah.

And so there are two blocks in the game that can be used to circumvent this.

Do you happen to know what those are?

I'd say it's slime blocks and honey blocks, no?

Exactly.

All right.

Using this kind of setup, I could move the honey blocks above the ceiling and have the fan plate right here.

It looks kind of cursed because there's this big gap right here.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's cool that you have, like, the gap in between it.

It's not, like, sticking to it yet.

It still, like, moves the trapdoor.

Yeah, I wanted to simulate what it would look like in real life.

Oh, yeah, of course.

This was the best solution.

And so, with that, I made this layout right here.

Basically, what it is is just a piston feed tape.

So, basically, you have four pistons in each of the corners and you have, like, one to three blocks missing from the corners.

So, you can actually move them around.

All right.

Just by towering these pistons, I could make the slime and honey blocks move, which also makes the fan blades move.

Okay, that's awesome.

That's actually really cool, yeah.

But as you may have seen, I've also color-coded these pistons or like the activations for them.

So I have these blue ones and then these yellow ones.

Right.

And what we can do is we can power the blue ones at the same time.

So the blue ones powered and then we can power the yellow ones.

Like that.

Blue ones, yellow ones, blue ones, yellow ones.

Right.

So it's pins at the same time on like both sides basically yeah yeah meaning

that i can just have one input line to connect these blue pistons

and these yellow pistons and just pulse them one after the other

and to do that i made this clock

if i turn this lever off okay oh my god you

can see it does a pulse on the yellow side on the blue one yellow blue yellow blue

and at full speed it goes pretty fast oh my god

that's insane that's actually insane i've never seen something like this

i can't lie it's actually crazy okay all right i i was aware

that the block state of the leaves change

when they come like closer that's like the only thing i understand here

but then this is like so fast okay using this clock

and that layout and sequence i made version 1.0 all right

and this one you've seen before i have yeah this looks

still it looks really cool yeah you can see like the technical parts behind it

which on one hand it looks cursed but on the other hand it looks cool because you can see how it works.

I wasn't too happy with this yet because of two problems.

First one is that you can see everything that is going on, even the slime and honey moving around.

But the second one is the animation because if we look at it closely, you can see it moves like one, two, skip, one, two, skip.

Oh, okay.

So it's not as smooth as possible.

Oh yeah, it's not like at the same speed I see.

I did fix or I tried fixing the fact

that it looks ugly by using iron blocks for the fan plates having trap doors on the slime

and honey blocks that i'm not using to move the fan plates i see it's not perfect

but i think it looks a bit nicer yeah i agree

there was still a lot of room for improvement the next thing i tried to fix is the speed

because i did not like the animation all right and so

that is why i opted to use two slimer honey blocks okay

and something like this almost works

so we can do this for move one then this for move two

but But now we need to move these honey blocks this one like that way and this one that way.

Right.

But let me try it

okay it messes up the pistons i see all right yep it doesn't work

but fortunately i found out a pretty easy way to fix

that all right and that is by using this layout right here

so basically what we can do is the same sequence

so it's one two and then we can swap out the pistons

that we don't want to use so basically the ones we just use

and swap in the pistons

that we want to use by powering this line above oh

my god okay it's one two swap one two swap okay

that is so creative that's actually insane that's

so cool i was pretty proud of

that yeah this is actually like not gonna lie that's impressive

100

i would not like think of something like this it's actually really cool

101

that you like swap the entire like design but yeah

102

that was a very easy sequence to do that

103

but i made it Even simpler because I made this line that powers all of the pistons in the bottom state.

104

All right.

105

And because we swap out the pistons that we don't want to power, we can do two pulses to the bottom pistons and then swap out the pistons.

106

One, two, swap.

107

One, two, swap.

108

One, two, swap.

109

That's insane.

110

Like, this is crazy.

111

If we're such like a simple fan, basically, there is like so much stuff going on behind the scenes.

112

That's actually really cool.

113

I mean, like, it's not simple with redstone, I mean, right?

114

but for me it was really simple to make this

115

but it's cool to see

116

that to actually make it with redstone you need to use

117

way more like powerful tricks basically for me it's basically magic

118

because like i have no idea how i would make this

119

but it's like really cool

120

that you found out the solution to like actually swap all of the pistons like solve the problem

121

that way i would have no idea how to do your

122

fan with command blocks i would just i would not know

123

where to even start i'm gonna be honest all right trust

124

me it's way simpler than this yeah then the way i

125

power these pistons is for moving the fan blades i use this clock

126

if you think the clock i showed you before was fast

127

then just look at this oh my god okay all right

128

okay that's crazy all right this is what is called a three game tick clock

129

but to say zero tick pulls every three game ticks for

130

0.15 seconds oh my god yeah it's pretty fast that's probably

131

as fast as you get right like yeah you can't clock

132

a piston faster than this this is the max speed insane

133

that doesn't look real so i use this to power pistons

134

that move the fan plates and then to swap out the pistons I use this clock which is just a bit slower.

135

Oh yeah.

136

This clock powers every 0.3 seconds

137

and the other one every 0.15 seconds meaning it will do

138

two moves of the faster clock where it does one move of the slower clock.

139

Oh yeah that makes sense yeah.

140

And so putting all of this together, the layout, the fast clock and the slow clock, we get version 2.0.

141

Oh okay that's way faster.

142

Look at that.

143

Oh that's way better it's a lot faster

144

and the animation is smoother as well that's actually cool that's like really nice

145

so look at the pistons moving in

146

and out oh yeah that's like i love the like the idea behind it i still like haven't completely comprehended

147

that but like yeah so cool

148

but there is one big problem you can't really stop it okay you can stop it without it breaking

149

but the honey blocks can move to like the wrong place

150

okay update from the future i did make a fixed version

151

that turns off reliably and you can find that in the world download

152

and let's make a deal i give you the world download for completely free

153

and you subscribe all right thanks

154

but okay this is where you came in i had shown you these two designs right

155

and you showed me this kind of ceiling fan working with

156

command blocks yes yeah that's true i do i do yeah

157

and admittedly it does look a lot nicer as in you can't see any redstone

158

so uh yeah i decided to give this a go also and this is the layout that I came up with.

159

Basically what it is is only two piston feet tapes.

160

I think I do kind of understand.

161

First we do two moves of the yellow feet tape.

162

We do this and then we power this right and do this and there is one movement of the yellow feet tape.

163

Okay.

164

And then we do another one like that, that and that.

165

Okay.

166

And now it has moved two blocks with the yellow feet tape

167

and And then we do two moves of the blue feed tape.

168

So it's one...

169

like that.

170

And then it moves again.

171

Okay, that does make sense.

172

That's actually cool though.

173

It just switches between the two feed tapes basically.

174

Mm-hmm.

175

Now this is not per se, but you need a quite a lot of precise timings to make this work.

176

There is a lot of zero tick chaining and double pulses and stuff like that.

177

If you come over here, we can see version 3.0.

178

Okay, that's much bigger.

179

It's a little bit more complicated than the other ones.

180

There aren't that many cool tricks you can use to make this simpler.

181

Alright, but still for me, seeing rails used as like a redstone component is mind-blowing okay now for the animation

182

and yeah this is i think by far the cleanest yeah that's

183

so nice that looks so good all right yeah the thing with like redstone

184

and command blocks for me uh i only can make it

185

snap to a block right like i have full blocks

186

but the redstone like the pistons push it that way

187

that it actually has an animation

188

if you like know what i mean yeah yeah it's sometimes

189

it's like in the middle of the block i can't like

190

get it to look this smooth only with like blocks i could like use entities

191

but it would be made like way more complicated this is

192

so cool i appreciate it i appreciate it you can technically see a bit of redstone

193

if you like look at it from a specific angle

194

but like it's a ceiling fan yeah in most cases you

195

can't see any redstone it's not like you're going to be up here like you know inspecting the redstone

196

so yeah that would be dangerous you don't want to hit your head exactly

197

but i also figured out you could have like these iron trap doors like this

198

if you wanted to oh yeah

199

that makes sense it's still like in the same block with the slabs

200

so yeah that's cool and also

201

if you want to see the feed tapes working you can

202

see kind of how they work yo okay that's cool there's a lot of movement going on

203

but you can't really see it this looks like awesome only

204

like this also looks super cool the fan looks insane

205

but this also looks really cool to see it like without

206

the cover of the dark oak draptors basically dude just wait

207

for the last one okay it's gonna be insane i'm getting excited all right

208

but okay i very much like this design and I think it looks the cleanest by far, but still I did kind of want to have the fan placed below the ceiling like this.

209

I see, yeah.

210

And I thought a compromise would be to have like only two Slimer Honey blocks in the ceiling

211

and the other blocks be like whatever block you want.

212

Right, right.

213

And I also switched to spruce because I think it looks nicer.

214

It's a lighter color instead of the dark oak, so I thought it would look nicer with the Honey blocks.

215

Yeah, with the Honey block there is like less contrast between it, yeah.

216

Now this layout took me so goddamn long to figure out.

217

It took me like a week to figure out.

218

Oh my god.

219

And it's so stupid because it's not even that complicated.

220

It's always the simplest stuff that takes the longest to figure out.

221

The way this works, we want to move these honey blocks in a way where these blocks are like non-sticky.

222

Uh-huh.

223

And the way we do that is by pushing them.

224

Because when you push blocks, honey won't actually stick to them.

225

Alright, I know that, yes.

226

So, what we do for the middle blocks is pretty easy.

227

We just have these sliders going back and forth like this.

228

Okay.

229

And then on the other side, we just have another slider right here.

230

Right.

231

And then we still need to have feed tapes to actually move the blocks around when we push the honey.

232

And the way we do that is by using these feed tapes marked out by the blue and yellow.

233

All right.

234

So basically, right now, we want to move this honey this way.

235

So what we do to make these blocks non-sticky is we move this piston.

236

Now, these blocks are moving, and these would be moved by the sliders, which lets us power this at the same time.

237

All right.

238

I can't really showcase that here

239

because you need to have everything moving at the same time

240

but yeah no i understand that yeah

241

so it like doesn't stick yeah i get

242

that yeah again we do two moves of the blue feed tape

243

when the honey blocks are like this we do two moves of the yellow feed tape

244

so basically the same idea that was in the last one okay

245

and so a few tricks i used to make this easier is this

246

because like we need to move this piston first

247

or these blocks first because we cannot move this honey right now so I need to move this first and this second.

248

Now I realized that I could do it with one pulse

249

because I could power this piston immediately and this piston with block event delay.

250

I'm not gonna explain fully what that means, but basically just think about it and it happens at the same time, but it's scheduled later by the game.

251

Like the game processes this piston later.

252

Now if we had it like this...

253

Oh, what the f*?

254

Oh, that is unreliable.

255

Okay, let's cut that.

256

Let's go.

257

We power this piston first and power this later with Brock Event Delay.

258

Right.

259

And as you can see, that all works with just one pulse.

260

Okay.

261

And then we move this here and this here and we can do that again.

262

Oh yeah.

263

Alright.

264

And then, because we want to do two moves of the blue feed tape and two moves of the yellow feed tape, we use this kind of toggle mechanism.

265

Right.

266

If I just turn on this clock, which the fan also uses.

267

Oh, okay.

268

We can see, if you look at these pistons right here, it does two pulses of one side, and then it switches.

269

Oh yeah.

270

Oh yeah.

271

So it's one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two.

272

Oh yeah, I see it.

273

Yeah, alright.

274

Having an observo like this does that just perfectly.

275

Okay.

276

Which is very convenient.

277

Very cool.

278

That's a way we can only use one clock to power all of the necessary pistons.

279

We don't need two clocks, for example.

280

Okay.

281

And then another trick I used.

282

Okay, this gets a bit complicated, but this is the way I make it so you can turn the fan off without breaking it.

283

Mhm.

284

It's not doing much, but it is crucial for this to work.

285

Basically what it does is it's powering these 3-tick repeaters back and forth in a way that this piston stays powered.

286

And that is what we used to activate the clock.

287

This does a 12-game tick loop.

288

So this is 6-game ticks and this is 6-game ticks.

289

So when I turn this off, they both have to do the full loop where it does a 12-game tick pulse.

290

So it's like predictable when it pulls down, like the piston.

291

Yeah, exactly.

292

So it does like the full 12-game tick loop, which is exactly the time it takes to do 4 moves of the fan.

293

I see.

294

Yeah, by using this, we can make sure it turns off at the right time after

295

that 12 game ticks or 4 moves.

296

Okay.

297

It's a bit complicated, but I'm actually very proud of this also.

298

It took quite a long to figure out.

299

Oh, yeah.

300

And putting all of this together, we get version 4.0.

301

The one you haven't seen.

302

All right.

303

Okay, it looks really cool already.

304

Three, two, one.

305

Whoa.

306

And it's on.

307

Whoa, that actually looks so much better with the trap doors.

308

This is sick.

309

I love it.

310

Honestly, like, this looks so cool.

311

Not that I would like understand much of this happening up here, but the thing that's going down, you know, That's the thing that's rotating down here looks awesome.

312

So that's all that matters You don't even like see the little gap like you did with the previous version.

313

So this is also really cool The only ugly thing you see is the honey like you see nothing else Right, but you know, it's part of the magic.

314

So why not?

315

But that's not all I figured out

316

that you can have a 5x5 area like this and this also looks pretty insane It looks way better with yeah.

317

Yeah.

318

Okay.

319

Oh, wow Just look at all of those blocks moving.

320

Oh yeah, that actually adds to it.

321

That's so cool.

322

And this way you can have like slabs instead for example.

323

Because you have like more of an area around the fan.

324

So you can have like more of an indent right here.

325

So it doesn't look as bad.

326

So you have more choices for block pallets.

327

Yeah, you can actually like use it in build and stuff.

328

And I also made this for example.

329

So you can have like yellow blocks.

330

Like a factory for example.

331

Oh yeah, so it doesn't like, you know, the honey doesn't stand out as much.

332

Yeah, exactly.

333

Okay, okay.

334

And if you want to go like fully seamless, like if you don't want to see any honey, you can of course just use full blocks like this.

335

Okay, wait one question, would slabs work?

336

Uh, yeah.

337

I think those might look better as the blades.

338

Okay, that still looks really cool.

339

And now you don't see any honey either.

340

Yep, it's fully seamless.

341

That looks awesome.

342

I appreciate it.

343

I'm pretty proud of this one.

344

This actually looks so good.

345

I had no idea that like someone watching

346

that video with my little small fan on the ceiling would make something this cool.

347

But now, see what it looks like without the ceiling.

348

And this, you're gonna wanna sit down for this.

349

Okay.

350

Oh, oh my god, that's like a piece of art.

351

It's just like everything moving in synchronization.

352

That's so cool.

353

All of that for one ceiling fan.

354

Yeah, exactly.

355

Think about it.

356

Exactly.

357

At this point, you are better off without the ceiling fan.

358

Imagine all the fans in real life would have this large of a system behind them.

359

It's the size of a house.

360

Like literally.

361

You need like a big house to actually fit this in, but...

362

You know, it might be worth it.

363

Like build a mansion for your ceiling fan.

364

If I did survival, I would definitely build this.

365

Yeah.

366

Not even gonna lie.

367

And when you're standing down here, you don't even hear it, so...

368

I actually have a mod that makes pistons louder and like...

369

You can hear them from the way.

370

Okay, alright, alright.

371

I can very much hear it, but...

372

I can't, I can't hear it here.

373

Honestly, insane job.

374

Like, this is all so cool.

375

Like all of the designs, even the previous ones, and this one is just like...

376

A cherry on top.

377

Okay, bye.

✨ Recommend Video

550 sentences

Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson

This B1 speaking lesson is built on the video “Overengineering Ceiling Fans in Minecraft”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: block, piston, fan, cool, honey. This video has 377 sentences and 3696 words to shadow. The speech runs for 16:49. The speaker talks fast, about 220 words per minute, so expect linked and reduced sounds. 85% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English; the rest is worth studying before you start.

Key vocabulary in this video

The 15 most advanced words in the video, with pronunciation and meaning:

Word	Pronunciation	Meaning
piston noun	/ˈpɪstən/	A solid disk or cylinder that fits inside a hollow cylinder, and moves under pressure (as in an engine) or displaces fluid (as in a pump)
ceiling noun	/ˈsilɪŋ/	The overhead closure of a room.
swap verb	/ˈswɑp/	To exchange or give (something) in an non-normal exchange (for something else).
redstone noun	/ˈɹɛd.stoʊn/	A type of versatile material used to create electrical circuits and mechanisms.
tick noun	/tɪk/	A tiny woodland arachnid of the suborder Ixodida.
pulse noun	/pʌls/	A normally regular beat felt when arteries near the skin (for example, at the neck or wrist) are depressed, caused by the heart pumping blood through them; the…
layout noun	/ˈleɪ.aʊt/	A structured arrangement of items within certain limits.
blade noun	/bleɪd/	The (typically sharp-edged) part of a knife, sword, razor, or other tool with which it cuts.
animation noun	/ˌæn.ɪˈmeɪ.ʃən/	The act of animating, or giving life or spirit.
slime noun	/slaɪm/	Soft, moist earth or clay, having an adhesive quality; viscous mud; any substance of a dirty nature, that is moist, soft, and adhesive; bitumen; mud containing…
slab noun	/slæb/	A large, flat piece of solid material; a solid object that is large and flat.
slider noun	/ˈslaɪdɚ/	A potentiometer with a linearly sliding control.
loop noun	/luːp/	A length of thread, line or rope that is doubled over to make an opening.
trap noun	/tɹæp/	A machine or other device designed to catch (and sometimes kill) animals, either by holding them in a container, or by catching hold of part of the body.
seamless adjective		Having no seams.

Phrasal verbs you will hear

Word	Meaning
figure out verb	To come to understand; to discover or find a solution; to deduce.
find out verb	To discover, as by asking or investigating.
come over verb	To affect in a sudden, unprecedented or surprising manner; to overwhelm a person's ordinarily contrary impulse.
come up with verb	To manage to produce, deliver, or present (something) by inventing, creating, thinking of, or obtaining it.
go back verb	To return to a place or state after having been there at a previous time.
go down verb	To descend; to move from a higher place to a lower one.
go through verb	To travel from one end of something to the other.
mess up verb	To make a mess of; to untidy, disorder, soil, or muss.

Sentences worth repeating

Short, complete lines from the video that you can reuse in everyday conversation:

It's not as flashy as your design.
Do you happen to know what those are?
I'd say it's slime blocks and honey blocks, no?
We don't need two clocks, for example.
The one you haven't seen.

Grammar in this video

The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:

Structure	In the video
Conditional sentences if + clause, will/would + verb — a condition and its result	If I did survival, I would definitely
“Used to” used to + verb — a past habit or state that is no longer true	used to make · used to activate
Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now	i've never seen · you've seen · has moved
Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it	is called · would be made · would be moved

Pronunciation to watch

The speaker uses 53 contractions and reduced forms, such as can't, don't, gonna. Say them the short way, as you hear them.

The “sh” and “zh” sounds: animation /ˌæn.ɪˈmeɪ.ʃən/, flashy /ˈflæʃi/, activation /ˌæktəˈveɪʃən/, showcase /ˈʃoʊˌkeɪs/, mansion /ˈmæn.ʃən/
Long words — get the stress right: animation /ˌæn.ɪˈmeɪ.ʃən/, unreliable /ˌʌn.ɹəˈlaɪ.ə.bəl/, predictable /pɹəˈdɪktəbləl/, activation /ˌæktəˈveɪʃən/, fortunately /ˈfɔɹ.t͡ʃə.nɪt.li/

How to practise with this video

Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
Start at 0.75× speed, shadow it sentence by sentence, then go back to normal speed once it feels easy.
Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like piston, ceiling, swap.

What is the Shadowing Technique?

Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.

Shadowing technique: read the full step-by-step guide →

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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson

Key vocabulary in this video

Phrasal verbs you will hear

Sentences worth repeating

Grammar in this video

Pronunciation to watch

How to practise with this video

What is the Shadowing Technique?