For the Arctic Cloud Developer Challenge, we implemented a fully automated CI/CD pipeline that builds, tests, and deploys our 404ACDC Plugin to Power Platform without any manual intervention. This eliminates the traditional pain points of plugin deployment—no more opening the Plugin Registration Tool, manually uploading DLLs, or risking configuration drift between environments.
Pipeline Architecture
Our pipeline consists of three sequential stages, each depending on the successful completion of the previous one.
The Build Stage restores NuGet packages (including the Dataverse SDK), compiles the solution in Release configuration, runs unit tests, and publishes the plugin assembly as a build artifact. The pipeline triggers automatically whenever code changes are pushed to the main branch in the plugin or test project directories.
As shown in our pipeline configuration, we have set up smart triggering that only runs the pipeline when relevant files change:
The Deploy Stage downloads the build artifacts and uses Microsoft’s official Power Platform Build Tools to push the updated assembly to Dataverse. Before deployment, we run a WhoAmI check to verify our service connection is valid. Here is the core deployment configuration from our pipeline:
The Register Steps Stage uses PowerShell and the Microsoft.Xrm.Data.PowerShell module to register or update plugin steps, wiring our code to the appropriate Dataverse messages and entities.
Security Approach
We never store credentials in our pipeline YAML. Instead, we use an Azure DevOps variable group that contains our environment configuration, as referenced in the pipeline:
- group: PowerPlatform-Variables # Contains ServiceConnectionName, EnvironmentUrl, etc.
The service principal credentials are stored as encrypted secret variables, masked in all pipeline logs. The service principal itself has only the minimum permissions needed to register plugins.
Build and Test Configuration
Our build stage ensures code quality by compiling and running tests before any deployment occurs:
This approach gives us repeatability (every deployment follows the identical process), auditability (complete history of every pipeline run), speed (deployments that took 15-20 minutes manually now complete in a few minutes), and safety (no exposed credentials, no deploying broken builds).
How we did it
The pipeline YAML in our repository is the actual configuration driving our deployments. Our Azure DevOps project contains the corresponding service connection, variable group, and deployment environment (PowerPlatform-Production) referenced in the pipeline. The stage dependencies ensure we never deploy untested code:
- stage: Deploy displayName: 'Deploy to Power Platform' dependsOn: Build condition: succeeded()
This automated deployment foundation demonstrates that we have applied professional DevOps practices to our Power Platform solution, ensuring reliable and consistent deployments throughout the challenge.
Even in a hackathon setting, we designed with structure and responsibility in mind.
From raw blocks to blazing insights: use Microsoft Fabric to take messy data through a structured refinement process, model it into trusted semantic layers, unlock visual storytelling with Power BI, and build a foundation with Fabric IQ that helps both AI agents and data scientists uncover the real value in your datasets. If something doesn’t add value, keep polishing until it sparkles! 💎
Automatically Syncing Minecraft Materials from the Wiki into Dataverse
Keeping material availability up to date in a Minecraft building workflow sounds simple… until you decide to automate it properly.
Instead of manually maintaining a list of materials every time Minecraft introduces new blocks, I built a workflow that reacts automatically when the Minecraft Wiki publishes updates.
The result? New materials become available for building approvals without anyone lifting a finger.
The Problem
Our building flow relies on a Dataverse table that defines which materials are allowed to be used when players submit Minecraft house builds for approval.
Minecraft updates frequently, and new materials are introduced all the time. Manually tracking these changes would be:
Easy to forget
Error-prone
Extremely un-fun
So naturally, automation was the only reasonable answer.
The Solution Overview
The solution is built around a simple idea:
If the Minecraft Wiki announces a new material, Dataverse should know about it automatically.
To achieve this, I created a Power Automate workflow that listens for update emails from the Minecraft Wiki and turns those updates into structured data.
How It Works (Step by Step)
1. Minecraft Wiki Sends an Update Email
Whenever the Minecraft Wiki publishes a list of newly added materials, an email is sent out containing those updates.
This email becomes the trigger point for the entire system.
2. Power Automate Listens for the Wiki Email
A Power Automate flow is configured to trigger when an email arrives from the Minecraft Wiki.
The flow checks:
Sender (to ensure it’s actually from the Wiki)
Subject or content indicating a materials update
Only valid update emails continue through the workflow.
3. Extract New Materials from the Email
The flow parses the email content and identifies the newly added materials.
Each material is treated as its own data record, rather than just text in an email.
4. Create Records in Dataverse
For every new material found, the flow creates a new row in the Materials Dataverse table.
This table is the single source of truth for:
What materials exist
What materials are allowed
What materials builders can select
5. Materials Are Instantly Available in the Building Flow
Because the building approval flow reads directly from the Dataverse Materials table, the new materials are immediately available:
In Canvas Apps
In approval logic
In validation rules
No redeployment. No manual updates. No “why can’t I use this block?” messages.
Why This Is Fun (and Slightly Ridiculous)
From a pure business perspective, this might be overkill. From an automation perspective, it’s perfect.
This setup demonstrates:
Event-driven automation
Email parsing as a data source
Dataverse as a dynamic configuration layer
Zero-touch updates to user-facing logic
And most importantly: Minecraft content updates now trigger enterprise-grade automation.
Our mission is to connect reality in the real world to the reality in the digital world. Creating an entertainment platform building on creativity in all ways from the visual to the engineering focused requirement specification to using natural language. This approach unites all kinds of people in the game and removes most boundaries for expressing yourself creatively. It bridges age, cultures and location. It unifies the world in a time when we need it.
TL;DR: What We Set Out to Build
The Vision: Build in Minecraft using three completely different input methods:
Physical blocks on a camera-monitored plate (build IRL → Minecraft)
Voice commands through an AI contact center agent
Web ordering via a beautiful Power Pages interface
The Reality: Two out of three ain’t bad. And what we did build? It’s pretty spectacular.
What Actually Works (And Why It Matters)
✅ The Physical Building Plate
Status: FULLY OPERATIONAL
micro:bit v1 PIR sensor detects motion → triggers Azure Function
Custom .NET Dataverse plugin processes AI responses
Power Automate orchestrates the workflow
MCP server builds in Minecraft
Power Pages control center and shop
Why this is impressive: We bridged the physical and digital worlds using a device from 2015, cutting-edge AI vision, and enterprise cloud infrastructure.
Link Mobility SMS integration for ownership notifications
SharePoint-based event notification system
Why this is impressive: Low-code perfection. Template-based deployment. Setup time: 15-25 minutes.
❌ The Voice Channel
Status: PLANNED FOR V2 (wink wink)
What happened: We hit a roadblock with Copilot Studio voice features in our “Early Access” environment. The error: “Voice features are currently not available for your bot.”
Lesson learned: Sometimes “cutting edge” means you’re the one getting cut. We chose stability for demo day.
The good news: The architecture is ready. The contact center is configured. The agent is built. We just need the voice activation to work post-hackathon.
Redstone Realm: Business Solutions with AI
Our Pitch:
We built a hybrid solution that combines:
Power Platform (Power Pages, Power Automate, Dataverse, Copilot Studio)
AI confidence thresholds (85%+ for autonomous action)
Batch processing with partial success handling
Comprehensive audit trail in Dataverse
Pattern recognition and learning capabilities
Image-to-block-to-coordinate transformation
Data Products:
Timestamped snapshots with metadata
Block detection records with confidence scores
Build history and analytics
AI decision audit logs
We didn’t just use AI—we built a production-ready AI pipeline with safety controls, monitoring, and transparency.
Low-Code: Power Platform Excellence
Our Pitch:
We built three complete low-code solutions without PCF components:
Solution 1: Minecraft Builder Interface
Power Pages responsive website
Copilot Studio AI chat interface
Power Automate orchestration flows
Dataverse for data management
Link Mobility custom connector (using paconn for advanced config)
Solution 2: Event Notification System
Power Pages registration
SharePoint agenda management
Power Automate scheduled checks (every minute)
Automatic email delivery
Smart “processed” logic (no code required)
Solution 3: “DO NOT PRESS” Governance App
Canvas App with intentional complexity
Power Automate integration
SharePoint logging
Azure Runbook orchestration
Automated email notifications
Why this demonstrates mastery:
Zero PCF components
Entirely drag-and-drop configuration
Custom connector creation with paconn
Policy templates for API manipulation
Template-based deployment (<30 min setup)
Reusable across scenarios
Code Connoisseur: When You Need Code
Our Pitch:
Sometimes low-code isn’t enough. When that happened, we wrote production-quality code:
Custom .NET Dataverse Plugin (C# .NET 4.6.2)
csharp
// ImageBlockUpdatePlugin - Processes AI vision responses
- Triggers on Dataverse Update event
- Deserializes GPT-4o Vision JSON
- Batch updates with partial success handling
- Comprehensive error logging
- 80%+ success rate in production
MCP Server (TypeScript/Node.js)
typescript
// Minecraft Builder MCP Server
- Full Model Context Protocol implementation
- RESTful API (10+ endpoints)
- Docker-ready deployment
- Open-sourced on GitHub
- Used by multiple teams
PowerShell Automation
powershell
# Azure DevOps CI/CD Pipeline
- Automated Minecraft plugin deployment
- mcrcon for graceful server management
- Scheduled tasks for continuous deployment
- Zero-downtime updates
micro:bit Python (MicroPython)
python
# Extreme memory optimization
- 16KB RAM constraint
- Manual garbage collection
- AT command serial communication
- Edge detection algorithms
- Rate limiting implementation
We didn’t just automate—we **transformed how people interact with digital spaces.
Problem: Building in Minecraft requires keyboard skills, technical knowledge, and time.
Solution: Three input channels, zero Minecraft knowledge required.
Impact 1: Physical Building Accessibility Before: Kids/non-gamers can’t participate After: Place physical blocks, see digital results instantly Measurable: Less than 15 second latency from motion to build
Impact 2: Event Automation Before: Manual email reminders, missed sessions After: 100% automated, 1440 checks per day, zero manual work Measurable: Used by 2+ other teams, 100% delivery success
Impact 3: Build Democratization Before: One person building, team watching After: Multiple inputs (physical + web), collaborative creation Measurable: Shared MCP API, multiple concurrent builders
Impact 4: Developer Efficiency Before: Manual plugin deployment, server downtime After: Full CI/CD with Azure DevOps, graceful shutdowns, player notifications Measurable: 15-minute deployment cycle, zero failed deployments
Business Value: Time saved: 90% reduction in manual notifications Accessibility: Non-technical users can build complex structures Collaboration: Multiple input channels, team building Developer productivity: Automated deployment pipelines
Real-world applicability: Architecture visualization (physical models to digital twins) Remote collaboration (distributed teams building together) Educational tools (teaching coding through visual building) Accessibility solutions (multiple interaction modes)
Building in Minecraft after recieving instructions from the web portal.
micro:bit → ESP8266 WiFi → Azure Function → Blob Storage → GPT-4o Vision → Custom Plugin → Dataverse → Power Automate → MCP Server → Minecraft Plugin → Minecraft World
Safety & Governance:
AI confidence thresholds
Action limits (10 blocks autonomous)
Audit trails (full Dataverse logging)
Kill switch (physical button override)
Rate limiting (5 req/sec)
What We Learned and why this matters
We didn’t build everything we planned. Server capacity ran out. Voice integration hit roadblocks. Some features had to wait for V2.
Three days. Five developers. Two working input channels. One spectacular demonstration of what happens when you combine:
Power Platform low-code simplicity
Azure cloud scalability
Custom code excellence
AI vision intelligence
Physical world interaction
Open source collaboration
This is hybrid development at its finest.
Wins:
✅ MCP Protocol works brilliantly for AI-to-game integration ✅ GPT-4o Vision can do spatial reasoning ✅ Power Platform scales from simple to complex ✅ micro:bit from 2015 can still be cutting-edge ✅ Open source collaboration speeds everyone up
Challenges:
⚠️ “Early Access” environments are risky for demos ⚠️ 16KB RAM requires extreme optimization ⚠️ Server capacity planning is critical ⚠️ Integration debugging takes longer than expected
Proud Moments:
🎉 First successful physical-to-digital build 🎉 MCP server used by other teams 🎉 AI confidence system working in production 🎉 Zero failed deployments 🎉 Other teams using our notification system
For the judges:
We know you’re evaluating across multiple categories. We’ve built solutions that demonstrate excellence in:
Redstone Realm: Multi-cloud Microsoft stack with AI
Data & AI: Production computer vision pipeline
Low-Code: Three template-ready solutions
Code Connoisseur: Four custom code projects
Digital Transformation: Measurable business impact
We didn’t finish everything. But what we finished? It’s exceptional 😉
The Team
404: Diamonds Not Found
We may not have found all the diamonds, but we built something that creates them automatically.
As our catalogue grows our agents need a convenient way to search our database of builds. To solve this issue we created a custom page that we could integrate into our Model driven app. The app leverages Dataverse tables as its sources leveraging the ability to delegate the filtering so it’s made in Dataverse and not in the app, layouts for a responsive UI and only out of the box components.
You can either search using the search boxes separately
Dear judges, please feel free to search through this blog post to find you key words for you categories. Enjoy reading, love PixelPoints <3
Solution
Overall technical sketch and diagram, The solution is a Power Platform–centric architecture that integrates external systems, SharePoint, Azure services, and a Minecraft client to enable secure data exchange, automation, and gameplay interaction through APIs and agents.
At its core, Power Platform acts as the orchestration layer, while Azure handles API exposure and backend services, and the Minecraft client consumes these capabilities through a custom API and agent.
Power Platform
Power Apps is used to build our user interface outside Minecraft. A player will be able to sign in with their Minecraft credentials to fetch relevant information about their player profile and inventory by triggering an API call to our Minecraft server. You have to be logged on in-game in order to fetch the information.
When logging in you call a custom API through a Custom Connector. It will retrieve information about profile and inventory that is used to populate the Power Apps with data such as credits and who the player is.
PixelStreet, our own Minecraft Wall street, for getting knowledge, ask question about player inventory, PointCoins (our own currency), and how to build and craft items using Copilot Studio. Our agent is connected to online resources to find information about the Minecraft and with connection to Microsoft Foundry and Azure Functions in order to get information about live data on our Minecraft server. You can get intel about prices that are fluctuating and updating depending on different world events and players buying and selling.
The Copilot Studio Agent we added a topic that has an action to perform a “Custom search”. It uses a web search and the input is coming from the conversation with the user. So the user is prompted to ask for what they want to craft, then how much and what they have in their inventory before doing a search online to fetch information. For the low code lovers, we have used Power Fx to formulas used in the topic.
The output wasn’t structured enough, so we added a custom prompt to transform the output to a useful format. It was given instructions on how to handle the input from the custom search and what the output should be.The custom prompt is built using instructions and natural language and help from Copilot to build the great instructions.
Pretty cool to build these custom prompts and get some very valuable output when combined with a clever little search to the big internet 😀
Minecraft
We have made some stellar interfaces in Minecraft. A custom Market place that function as a shop and to see your inventory.
When you hover an item, you’ll be presented a graph and dashboard showing trends in prices. You’re able to buy and sell items by right and left clicking them.
Autocrafting: show current options
Autocrafting: creating planks from available options
SharePoint is where we store all our documents generated by our flows and external services. When a code of conduct is signed, it is sent to a SharePoint library and then updated with the correct metadata. It also proves easy access to the rest of the solution with the PixelStreet app, PowerBI reports and the Teachers’ Lounge. This is where we gather all the information from Dataverse about the Player, their Teacher and the Contact Person.
The Teacher’s lounge is the Team where the teachers hang out and gets notified by a Teams bot whenever new players arrive. In addition to the Team bot notification, the teacher responsible will get some Planner tasks appointed to them.
TEST and PROD being Managed environments configured with security groups.
DLP policies
Copilot Studio Overview
Power Platform Pipelines
Privileged Identity Management for activating Global Admin for our users only for a period of time instead of permanently. We needed to have the Global Admin role to enable features like Managed Environments and Power Platform Pipelines.
Purview
Source control
On the Low Code part, as showed before, we are using Power Platform Pipelines and the git control OOTB functionality. It was a great balance between easy implementation, tracking changes, having always a backup available and of course ease the deployment of our solutions through our environments.
On the Pro Code part, of course source control is an essential part of our solution as well! (Not using git for it would be criminal!). We optet for storing all the elements on our solution in a single repository, since we are just two developers who work well together and use branching for working on and deploying our changes.
This is what our repository looks like!
CSharp: we are storing here our main C# solutions. That is:
AzureFunctionsApp: different Azure Functions we use for integrations.
DataverseJobs: one time jobs and scrapping and testing to Dataverse and endpoints.
EarlyBound: generation of Early Bounds to work more effectively.
Docs: we store all our docs here, which are sincronised used the Wiki as code functionality in Azure DevOps.
infra: we store here all our infrastructure (CI) code, and some of the CD part of it.
biceps: our biceps code is stored here, as we use IAC for Azure.
scripts: we have a lot of useful scripts for easing the configuration of our VM, setting up our Minecraft Server, updating our plugin…
plugins/PointPixelAPI: this is our Minecraft Plugin. Here resides all the functionality we developed for it, mainly our Minecraft shop, autoctrafting system and API endpoints.
Continous Implementation (CI)
The first part we consider in this process is how we deploy all our resources in Azure. Since we are continously deploying new things, we use biceps code to ensure every customization made happens without manual intervention and, in case the unimaginable happens, we can always roll back.
That includes AIFoundry, AzFunctionApps, Keyvault, Purview, a VM…
We are also using Managed Identity, so we also set the access between resources through biceps code.
Also, we have some scripts for automatically installing PaperMC and configuring the Virtual Machine so that we are able to connect to it and play. Also, we assign the VM a static IP.
Security and authentication
For security and authentication in Azure we opted to go for RBAC access management + automatically created Managed Identitities.
And of course, we are using Keyvaults for managing our secrets throughtout our whole solution:
Continous Deployment
We have been mainly using scripts for deploying our plugin to our Virtual Machine. That way a process that might see quite tedious (building in Maven -> connecting to VM -> transfering plugin build -> restarting server -> checking server restarts successfully) happens seamlessly!
Small comment: I am the developer and I’m very biased of course, but it’s tiny little part absolute fauvorite of the project! Hehe.
After that, we also set a pipeline to run that command at the speed of a commit push merge to main branch.
Testing process
Since we are two developers developing our Java Plugin at the same time, we agreed on setting some unit testing. That way, we make sure core functionality in the app never gets broken as we agidly add new functionality!
Documentation
Part of the good communication and ease to work together on a team comes from having good documents we all read, contribute to and comment!
Best practices
Wrapping custom APIs in a Custom Connector to retrieve information about a player and it’s inventory with two different endpoints instead of using HTTP requests in Power Automate for instance, making it more secure and safe, but also enable others to use it in the organisation PointPixels so it’s reusable and centralised when it comes development and maintenance.
The Custom connector has two actions, Inventory and Player Information.
Using solutions… Yes, we know it’s given, but we mention it because it’s important. All of our components are packaged in solutions, and these solutions are then used to update TEST and PROD environments with changes and updates
The solutions are connected to Git so that we have source control through Git Connection.
To keep our secrets secure in Power Platform, we’ve added environment variables of the Secret data type, which are linked to our Azure Key Vault.
Code
Autocrafting API
Retrieve all the recipes in for use in AI Foundry You can also find information about all the existing recipes in the game. Here there is an example:
We created an API with that information that serves as an MCP layer we use for showing available crafting recipes to Minecraft players.
Here are the explanation an example of all the different endpoints:
[GET] /recipe/{id}/{count} returns the recipe for a given item based on the id. It is also provide an amount to recalculate the ingredients needed.
[POST] /showCurrentCraftingOptions display all the available crafting opportunities based on a inventory and tools input:
— If a crafting table is available more items will be unlocked.
[POST] /showRemainingItems/{id}/{count} returns a list of missing ingredients to craft an item based on the inventory and tools available
[POST] /simulateCraftingResult/{id}/{count} simulates the inventory state after crafting is done for a specified item and amount based on a inventory and tools input. math: inventory – recipies expended + newly crafted items.
Microsoft Foundry: Economic Agent to predict future prices based on events
To understand the power our AI Foundry Agent has over our Minecraft world, it is convenient to have a small reminder about what our solution consists on, and also how the Data Model looks like (very briefly!).
Microsoft API -> Canvas App
The Pro Code layer: Minecraft API We have a really cool Minecraft plugin built in Java that, among other thing, exposes an API that shares real time information about the players.
As an example, here we have an endpoint for retrieving the inventory of a player:
About our solution
We created our own Minecraft server in which we simulate a living economy system. That sounds really cool, right?! That’s how we designed our data model to achieve such a goal!
Our data model
The most important part to understand here is the Minecraft Item Value. We represent the ever changing value of a Minecraft Item by creating a record for every variation in the price, recording both the price and the time range in which it is valid.
Cool! Where comes AI into play?
Right, right! We have the perfect scenario for generating simulations. And of course, we are not going to develop a custom algorithm that calculates it. We have data driven Generative AI !
So we create a beautiful AI Agent in Foundry that we are using from Azure Functions to generate the data and create the records in Dataverse.
With that in place, we decided to make it fun by adding the possibility to define economy crashing events, such as: wars, economic recessions, inflation, economical crisis or even Trump invading Greenland!
So, to make that work, we added this prompt as instructions:
You are a price simulation engine for a Minecraft economy.
Return ONLY a JSON array of objects with exactly these fields: – id (string) – price (number with 2 decimals) – validFrom (ISO 8601 string) – validUntil (ISO 8601 string)
Rules: – Generate prices for every item in “items”. – Use “history” as the trend signal. – validFrom starts at “from”. – validUntil = validFrom + stepMinutes. – Generate exactly “points” time steps per item. – Prices must be > 0. – No extra keys. No explanations. No markdown. Output JSON only.
And, having an input as follows, we simulate Trump is taking over Greenland, for example:
event: the economic event that’s taking place. items: list of items we want to simulate. history: last 2 prices of the items given. from: initial timedate to generate data. stepMinutes: interval between every fluctuation. points: how many iterations we want to generate for each item.
That is the result!
At the heart of the code section of our delivery is a virtual machine responsible for hosting the Minecraft server
Low code
Low-Code Excellence — Minimal Code, Maximum Impact 🧱✨
In the Arctic Cloud Developer Challenge submissions on ACDC.blog, low-code isn’t a fallback — it’s a super-power. Across multiple team builds, the focus is on using Power Platform’s drag-and-drop, builder-friendly capabilities to deliver real world value quickly, while keeping implementations maintainable, practical, and delightful.
Here’s how low-code mastery shines through:
1. Full functionality with zero PCF components Several solutions rely entirely on Power Platform building blocks — Canvas Apps, Model-Driven Apps, Power Pages, Power Automate, Dataverse, and Copilot Studio — without writing custom PCF or heavy code. These show that low-code can still be complete and compelling.
2. Responsive interfaces built with Power Pages A highlight is the Minecraft Builder Interface built as a Power Pages website — fully responsive, intuitive, and template-driven. It lets users interact with game elements, build structures, and trigger events without ever seeing a line of code.
3. Orchestration flows that feel like magic Power Automate flows weave business logic, condition paths, approvals, and external requests into automated pipelines that literally build structures in Minecraft. This shows how low-code logic can span from data triggers to API actions, replacing manual toil with orchestration brilliance.
4. Copilot and Power Fx unlock embedded intelligence Teams embed Copilot Studio agents and use Power Fx formulas directly in topics and data-model prompts — essentially weaving AI-assisted logic into low-code constructs, not just UI/screens. This elevates low-code solutions with intelligence without scripting.
5. Reusable templates and connectors Low-code is taken further with template-ready setups and custom connectors (built with paconn) so that solutions can be deployed in minutes and reused across scenarios. This is practical low-code architecture, not just quick prototypes.
Power Fx in Agents
Data, AI & Analytics — From raw blocks to data diamonds 💎
In the PointTaken26-1 PixelPoint category on ACDC.blog, the team showcases creative and technically rich solutions that weave data engineering, AI-driven insights, and dynamic analytics into one cohesive ecosystem — even inside a Minecraft world.
1. Building a data-centric architecture The PixelPoint solution is anchored by a Power Platform and Azure architecture that collects, orchestrates, and stores data from external systems, APIs, and gameplay interactions. At its core, Dataverse acts as the central data store for players, inventories, prices, and economy trends.
2. Real-time and trend analytics Rather than static reports, data flows into real-time dashboards — sometimes literally inside the Minecraft interface itself. For example, hovering over an item in their custom shop presents trend data such as current price, hourly and 24-hour price movement, and calculated trends, all derived from Dataverse records. This is a vivid demonstration of surfacing analytics where it matters most.
3. AI powered data generation and simulation The team uses Microsoft Foundry AI Agents to simulate economic data for their Minecraft economy. Instead of hand-crafting models, they rely on data-driven generative AI to produce price variations, allowing them to model economic events like recessions or inflation within the game world. This showcases AI not just as insight but as a data generator that feeds back into analytics.
4. Diagnostics and operational insights For deeper operational visibility, PixelPoint leverages Azure Application Insights to monitor both Azure Functions and AI Foundry models. This not only helps with debugging but also adds another layer of analytics around backend performance and usage patterns.
5. Agents and contextual intelligence Their Copilot Studio Agent taps into Foundry, external search, and structured AI prompts to bring contextual insights to end users — enabling players to query for crafting information or item trends. By transforming unstructured search output into usable data, they demonstrate AI as a bridge between raw data and decision-ready information.
Digital Transformation
We have developed an interactive learning platform that helps students understand trading, economics, and market dynamics in a practical and engaging way. The solution is built inside Minecraft, where students can buy and sell items in a simulated market that reacts to real-world concepts such as supply and demand, pricing, scarcity, and external events like wars or global changes.
The platform is teacher-controlled, allowing educators to manage student activity. This ensures a safe learning environment while giving teachers full oversight of progress and outcomes.
To create a scalable and intelligent solution, the platform is integrated with Microsoft technologies including Dataverse, APIs, Canvas Apps, Microsoft Teams, and SharePoint. Game data (transactions, prices, inventory, and student actions) is sent through APIs into Dataverse, where it is stored and processed. Canvas Apps are used for dashboards and administration, giving teachers real-time insights and control, while Teams and SharePoint are used for collaboration, communication and information storing.
This solution helps educational institutions do more with less by automating data collection, reporting, and monitoring, reducing manual administration for teachers. It significantly improves the student experience by turning complex economic theory into hands-on learning, while giving educators clear, actionable insights through automation and centralized data.
The platform demonstrates a real-world, intelligent digital transformation by combining automation, data integration, and immersive learning to improve both educational outcomes and operational efficiency.
Power BI
To help users gain insight of how the economy fluctuates, we have set up some simple and easy to understand dashboards in PowerBI, accessible from the PixelPoint SharePoint site. Are the price of gold going up or down? This is where you find out!
Redstone Realm — Business Logic, Built to Adventure ⚙️🟥
Rather than focusing on a single app or interface, the teams design connected ecosystems that work across devices, modalities, and user contexts — desktop and web, keyboard and touch, dashboards and chat interfaces.
1. Business-first solutions across the Microsoft stack The solutions integrate familiar tools such as SharePoint, Teams, Viva experiences, Dataverse, and Azure data services to solve concrete business problems. This approach grounds the creativity in reality — proving that the same tools used for collaboration, document management, and operations can also power imaginative, interactive experiences.
2. Multi-modal, inclusive experiences Whether users interact via web apps, Teams chat, dashboards, or conversational agents, the solutions are designed to meet people where they are. Accessibility and usability are treated as first-class concerns, ensuring smooth experiences regardless of device, input method, or working style.
3. AI as an infused capability, not a bolt-on AI is woven directly into the fabric of the solutions. Using Copilot Studio, agents, LLM-powered reasoning, and intelligent prompts, teams create systems that help users mine insights faster, make better decisions, and automate complex reasoning — the equivalent of forging an AI-infused pickaxe rather than placing individual blocks.
4. Redstone-style orchestration and automation Behind the scenes, logic flows, agents, and integrations act like redstone circuits and command blocks — triggering actions, reacting to events, and coordinating services across the platform. These intelligent automations turn static data into responsive systems that adapt to user input and context.
5. Trust by design: privacy, governance, and experience Despite the creativity and speed, the solutions remain rooted in enterprise principles. Data privacy, security, and governance are respected throughout, ensuring that innovation doesn’t come at the cost of trust. The result is solutions that are adventure-worthy and production-ready.
Redstone Realm Takeaway
The Redstone Realm category highlights solutions that balance imagination with impact. By combining Microsoft 365, Dynamics 365, Azure, and AI-powered agents, the teams show how modern business platforms can be assembled like redstone machines — modular, responsive, and endlessly extensible.
The team “404: Diamonds Not Found”have created a solution to help the community recieve alerts when Hackathon activities start, and they needed someone to test if the alerts is sent out. We were happy to oblige, and were happy to provide our contact info to their solution. Read more about their contribution at Community Champion | Arctic Cloud Developer Challenge Submissions
Go With the Flow: From Dataverse Status Change to a Minecraft Build 🧱
This Power Automate flow is a full end-to-end automation that turns a simple status change in Dataverse into an actual construction inside Minecraft. Yes — low-code meets blocks.
Let’s walk through what happens.
🔁 Trigger: Building Status Changes to Active
The flow starts when the Building Status column in a Dataverse table changes to Active. This status signals that a building is ready to move from idea to planning.
✅ First Approval: Planning Phase
As soon as the status becomes Active, the flow kicks off an approval to decide whether the building can move into the planning stage.
If approved:
The Dataverse record is updated to Planning
The flow continues automatically
If it’s rejected, the process stops right there — no rogue buildings allowed.
🏗️ Second Approval: Ready to Build
Once the building is officially in Planning, the flow starts a second approval, this time asking for permission to actually build it.
If approved:
The building status is updated to Building
The real fun begins
📐 Fetching Building Instructions
Now that construction is approved, the flow retrieves all building instructions from a separate Dataverse table that contains:
Building layers
Coordinate values
Material information
Each row represents a layer or block placement instruction for the Minecraft structure.
🔢 Coordinate Conversion
Before sending anything to Minecraft, the flow:
Converts the stored coordinate values
Applies offsets and transformations defined in the table
Prepares the exact X, Y, Z values needed by the Minecraft API
This allows the same building instructions to be reused and placed dynamically.
Dataverse coordinates
🌍 Building in Minecraft via HTTP PATCH
With coordinates and materials ready, the flow sends an HTTP PATCH request to a Minecraft API endpoint.
This request includes:
Exact block coordinates
Material type (stone, wood, etc.)
Placement instructions
Minecraft receives the request — and the structure is built automatically, block by block.
No manual placement. No creative mode chaos. Just pure automation.
🟢 Final Step: Update Status
Once the API confirms a successful build:
The relevant Dataverse rows are updated
The building status reflects that construction is complete (or moved to the next logical state)
This keeps Dataverse perfectly in sync with what actually exists in the Minecraft world.
Why This Is Cool (and Slightly Unhinged)
Uses Dataverse as a source of truth
Chains multiple approvals into a single flow
Converts structured data into real-world (or real-game) actions
Proves that Power Automate can, in fact, build houses in Minecraft
We managed to craft super cool gamified user experience. It look really cool and fancy. Will it suite for a real business scenarios, What do you think?
