Calgary Minecraft player creates virtual ceremony for Calgary high school grads

When Keon Zarabi realized graduation ceremonies weren't going to happen, he dove into the world of Minecraft to create his own.

Zarabirecentlygraduated fromRobert Thirsk High School butlike thousands of students, his ceremony tomark the academic milestone was cancelled due to ongoingCOVID-19 restrictions.

"We werepretty devastated, me and all my friends, when graduation was cancelled," said Zarabi.

"Since the outbreak,everything has been online:shopping, workouts, school, so I thought, why not celebrate graduation online?"

So Zarabiput his computer skills to use and built a world where he and his friends could all meet online.

Minecraftis apixelatedvideo game that allows players to explore and buildgenerated worlds in different modes, constructingbuildings and 3Dlandscapes out of blocks.

UsingMinecraft,Zarabibuilt a replica of Calgary'sBMOCentre,complete with a function room and stage thatstudents' characters in the game can cross, toreceive a diploma.

People from anywhere in the world canjoin his server and take part.

They even get a diploma displayed on screen with their player name and a message of congratulations from Zarabi.

"It's super fun, my friends have allhad a lot of fun, you can click the button and get your diploma in the Palomino Room," Zarabi said, which is where the real ceremony was due to take place.

"I was still doing my high school classes when I started this back in May and I also had to rely on my memory of how the BMO Centre looked, but I also searched the floor plan to base it off that too," said Zarabi.

He also had to learn how to run a server on his computer, scouring YouTube tutorials and learning from scratch.

It took around two months of work.

Theserver is upand running for anyone who wants to play at bmoyyc.ddns.net with theport number19132

Zarabi says students who want to joincan add a server in theservers section of Minecraft before typing the address and then adding the port number.

Zarabi is headed to the University of Calgary later this yearto study towards adegree in commerce.