Minecraft news » Community Creations: Automated Tunnel Bore Machine (Vanilla)

Cubehamster and company have created something incredibly useful for any mining enthusiast: an automatic tunnel bore machine! While many such creations already exist in the modding world, few have attempted - successfully or otherwise - to make such a machine in vanilla.

The machine has a fairly straightforward function: mine blocks, move forward. At certain intervals, it will move the mined blocks to a clever sorting system, which uses a wither to break up the blocks, which are then sorted through filters. If the machine hits something it cannot mine or gets stuck on (sand or gravel being common causes), it will alert the player with a color-coded beacon system (green is fine, orange indicates a problem, red is stopped). Pretty awesome!

This contraption was made for 1.9 and up, and you can try it out right here!