Mirror Maze

For Educators

Built for the classroom

The law of reflection — angle of incidence equals angle of reflection — through play, re-implementing the lesson of a Laser Maze / optics-bench exhibit. Each round serves a grid with a laser emitter, a target, and walls; students drop diagonal mirrors so the beam bends into the target. On the grid a ／ swaps a beam's direction East↔North and West↔South, a ＼ swaps East↔South and West↔North (each a 90° turn, same angle out as in), and light runs in straight lines between bounces. The live beam traces as they build, so they SEE every reflection. The win is efficiency: reach the target with the FEWEST mirrors — the route with the fewest corners. The deep idea, in the gated theorem: reflection angles are equal, light paths are reversible (a beam fired back from the target retraces to the emitter), and this is how a periscope sees over a wall, a kaleidoscope multiplies a pattern, and fibre-optic cables pipe light around corners. Every authored board is proven solvable but never trivial: our test (57 green) verifies the reflection mappings, the reversibility of a bounce, the beam trace, and that each board needs ≥2 mirrors yet is solvable within budget (a Dijkstra min-mirror solver gives the par the server scores against).

🎓 Grades 3+ · a 5×5–6×6 laser grid with an emitter, a target, and walls · solo is a best-of-5 Laser Lab vs four bots — match the best route (tie ⚡ The Optician) in 3+ rounds for the License · live rooms trace every beam at the reveal and the fewest-mirror solves win.