How can I get my redstone to activate adjacent pistons?

I'm trying to create my first circuit in minecraft:

• a - pressure plate
• p - piston
• d - dirt
• - or | - redstone

a----dddd pppp

Pistons are placed over the dirt and there's water under the dirt.

I'm trying this but it doesn't work:

a------- ddd ppp

This also doesn't work:

----
a || dd pp

This does work, but only if pistons aren't adjacent

a-------- | | | d d d p p p

Here are two screenshots:

This doesn't work

This works:

4 Answers

There are actually a large number of different ways you can do this. Perhaps the simplest is using redstone repeaters, like so:

There's also the design proposed by StrixVaria, which uses elevated redstone:

But there are even more ways you can do this. Here are a few:

Take your pick!

Try this:

a---+++ ppp

• a - pressure plate
• - - redstone
• + - redstone on a raised block (the block should be at the same level as the piston)
• p - piston

In order to power pistons, you either need the redstone line running directly into the piston, run the redstone line on a raised block, or using redstone repeaters. You can also power an adjacent block using a repeater, which can be very useful for certain applications.

If you'd like to power a long line of pistons the option with repeaters would be best but you'd have to use additional repeater so the signal doesn't die along the way, and this might be tricky. The attached solution works for me.