Transistor Run: for teachers

What it is

In the main game the student builds a circuit from gates and checks it against a truth table. In the Run the same concept appears a second time in a different format: the student walks an engineer across a living breadboard and carries the signal from source to door by hand. A live wire glows, a gate sits on a chip with the symbol printed on the case — the schematic is visible to the eyes and to the feet, not only on the editor canvas.

The sublevels cover 33 topics out of 47: from a wire and a NOT gate to the program counter, the decoder and Verilog-inspired levels. Texts, file work and hardware stay in the main game — the Run does not replace the course, it runs alongside it.

Bit puzzles

Besides running and jumping, the levels hold puzzles where the action operates on a single bit. They are solved with one key (E) in place, with no time pressure: the student sets the pace. These puzzles are what carry the course logic out of the editor and into the student's hands.

• Chest with a code lock. The lock is a three-bit counter from 0 to 7: every press of E adds 1, and the three lamps above the chest show the current bits (dark — 0, lit — 1). The coins above the shelf hint the code; a match opens the chest. The puzzle makes the student read a binary number off three lamps and see that 7 is 111. Every third chest on a level is special: it grants an arsenal part without the quiz.
• RAM cell. On the memory levels there are cells with an address (floor, column): with DATA on, pressing E writes a bit and the cell lights up. Death clears what was written — the student learns from experience what volatile memory means: until the bit is held deliberately, it is lost.
• Clock and latch. On the D flip-flop and register levels there are clock zones: pressing E in a zone latches the bit of the band the engineer stands on, and the value no longer changes until the next tick. "It only changes on the clock" is something the student feels bodily before building the flip-flop in the editor.
• Capacitor. Pressing E charges the capacitor; the discharge runs along the wire and powers the circuit indicators. An uncharged capacitor is just a part; a charged one is a source of a pulse — and the discharge along the wire hurts, so its route has to be planned.

For a lesson these are ready-made micro-tasks: before building the schematic, ask the student to predict which lamps will light at counter value 5; afterwards — why the bit written into the cell disappeared after falling into a pit.

The levels carry plaques of the "Museum on the Board": pressing E opens a card with a short story about a company or a machine — from the MOS 6502 and the ternary Setun to the open RISC-V architecture. Fifty entries are spread across the topics: the register level hosts Zilog, the bus level hosts the 6502, and the machine finale hosts the ES EVM and IBM. For class, each plaque is a ready hook into the history of computing, including Soviet machines: Lebedev's MESM and BESM, Setun, Ural, Agat. A plaque is read once, and if its card stays open for at least five seconds, three transistors drop out when it closes, so the collection grows naturally, with no separate assignment.

How the game ties into the course

A sublevel opens after the student successfully builds the schematic of the corresponding course level. After winning in the Run, the "Continue the course" button returns the student to the next course level, and after building the schematic in the course a link leads back to the sublevel. The navigation is two-way and works without a teacher: lesson and game alternate on their own.

Every sublevel has a guide in the library that walks through the schematic — the links are collected in the mapping table below.

Mapping table

The table is built from the game registry: the number and the title match the Run menu, the link leads to the level guide in the library, and the last column is taken from the sublevel quiz. You can use it as a lesson plan: the quiz question of a level is a ready-made question for a class check.

What the quiz checks

A sublevel quiz takes the measurable outcome of the course level and asks the student to predict it: "The SR latch holds Q=1. We apply S=0,R=0. What happens to Q?", "A=1, B=1. What are the S and C values of the half adder?". A correct answer opens the next sublevel, so the track does not move on without understanding the topic.

There is one workaround: special secret chests grant an arsenal part without the quiz. A student who finds such a chest still gets no next sublevel — the track is tied to the answer, and the chest only yields the tool itself.

Three ways to use it in class

• Warm-up before building. 5–7 minutes of the Run before working on the schematic: the student sees how the signal flows along a wire and what a gate does before assembling it in the editor.
• Consolidation after building. A sublevel opens once the schematic passes — a win in the Run and its quiz show whether the understanding carries over to a new context.
• A self-guided track. Locks, quizzes and time medals guide the student on their own; the 33-sublevel track works as a voluntary holiday assignment.

Progress and its limits

Run progress is stored in the browser's localStorage on the student's device. It is not part of the classroom account sync: the teacher does not see completed sublevels in the class view, and there is no progress transfer between devices. The observable markers for the student are unlocked sublevels, time medals and the "Arsenal" of 8 tools, from the switch to "A program: the machine".

For class tracking, use the main course in the classroom view: it shows passed schematics and results. Offer the Run as voluntary consolidation rather than a graded assignment.

Practicalities

The Run runs in a browser, with no installation, and is free. Controls are the keyboard; on phones and tablets on-screen touch buttons appear. The interface is available in Russian and English.