duncan: finally tonight, minecraft is not just child s play. the federal government is now using the popular video game to help kids improve their science, technology, engineering, and math skills by designing airports of the future. here is cbs erroll barnett. we welcome you to d.c.w. airport. reporter: real airports in a virtual world. what began as a simple idea to engage kids stuck in isolation from the pandemic, grew from 180 countries taking on the challenge, using the video game building world of minecraft. we created a fully autonomous program. reporter: a grade school in grand rapids came up with the space terminal. reporter: a term from detroit added virus detectors. we love building structures.
reporter: these brothers of buffalo, new york, teamed with abby roe of west virginia to design runway lights at charleston airp relyede bioluminescent fungi. reporter: two 11-year-olds and a 9-year-old came up with bioluminescent fungi. they give off a lot of light. please help me congratulateth bioluminescent fungi. pleas the west virginia mountaineers. reporter: what they prize most, making new connections during a disconnected time. in one word, meaningful. even through this craziness we still made a best friend. reporter: erroll barnett, cbs news, washington. duncan: that is the cbs weekend news for this sunday. coming up on 60 minutes, a look at personal documents from osama bin laden. i m jericka duncan in new york. we thank you so much. have a great night. captioning sponsored by cbs
advertising, and now 30,000 people are online talking with complete strangers. now it is running on seven servers in frankfort, germany, with financial help from this kid s family. erroll barnett follows this stuff, and you interviewed the founder, and it seems unusual. it is unl usual, but it has gone viral. when we first connected there were 30,000 users, but now it has exploded to 135,000 people around the world. so we have connected with them via webcam and asked him that key question of why he felt that a site like this was necessary. i do it, because, because i like to chat with people around the world to get to know other cultures and to see what people are doing all over the world.