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SQ-001

Mission 001The Illusion Engine

Some moths have flat wings that look curved. Students race a computer vision model to find camouflaged moths, spin a 3D wing, then design an illusion that fools a depth estimator.

Play the full mission See the teacher guide

Find the hidden moth.

One camouflaged moth. 20 seconds. Then a computer vision model tries the same image.

Takes about 30 seconds. Works with a mouse or touch.

Collection drawer. Computer Vision track

The collection so far.

Every mission is pinned here once it's ready for classrooms. One is in. Two more are in preparation.

The painted moth wing from Mission 001. It looks like a curled leaf.

SQ-001

The Illusion Engine

Eudocima salaminia. Flat wing, painted curve.

Collected 2026, UWA. Years 9 to 12. One lesson.

Open the mission

SQ-002

Teach the detector

Label your own images and train a model to find hidden moths.

In preparation

SQ-003

Vision in the field

Point computer vision at a new research problem.

In preparation

Try this with your eyes

Is this wing curved?

  1. It looks like a curled leaf. Light on one side, shadow on the other, a fold down the middle.
  2. Now turn it side on. If it were really curved, you'd see the bend.
  3. It's completely flat. The curve is painted on. That's the trick students take apart in Mission 001.
The wing face on. It looks curved.
Face on. Looks curved.
The wing turned halfway round.
Turning.
The wing side on. It's a flat sliver.
Side on. Flat.

Inside the mission.

  1. Discover

    Hunt for hidden moths, race a detector and meet the scientists behind the research.

  2. Experiment

    Spin the wing in 3D and spot the light and shadow tricks that fake depth.

  3. Create

    Design an illusion with sliders, or write the code for it in optional coding levels.

  4. Keep

    Download a field file with what they made, what they can now do and the careers behind it.

What students make.

Screens from the mission. Student work stays on their own device, so these are our examples.

A chart of a student's search times against the computer's on six scenes.
Fig. 1A labelled dataset of six scenes, raced against a computer.SQ-001.1
An example field file with an illusion design, its depth map and what the student changed.
Fig. 2A field file to download and keep.SQ-001.F
An illusion design scoring 100 against the depth estimator.
Fig. 3An illusion that fools a depth estimator. Score 100.SQ-001.3

Who does this for a job?

Every mission ends with the careers behind it. Mission 001 leads to four, and only one of them is mainly about code.

  • Computer vision engineer
  • Behavioural ecologist
  • Biophotonics researcher
  • Technical artist
Open the careers library

Run Mission 001 with one or two classes.

Schools pay A$20 per student, per year, for every mission. That includes the teacher pack, onboarding and a feedback survey. Nothing to pay until your class has used it.

Enquire about a school pilot What's included