Inspiration Controlling a machine from far away becomes difficult when video arrives late. Whether it is a Moon rover, drone, underwater robot, or disaster-response device, delayed feedback makes people over-correct because they are reacting to the past. We were inspired by the question: what if an interface could make delay understandable instead of hiding it?
What we’re building Light Delay is an interactive delayed-control experience built around the Earth–Moon communication-delay problem. Users will control a camera or simulated rover view with intentional latency. Instead of only showing delayed feedback, Light Delay will help them understand:
- what they are seeing from the past,
- where the machine is likely to be now,
- where their queued command is likely to take it, and
- when the system is uncertain.
How we plan to build it We plan to create a browser-based interface with a simulation-first approach and a small physical hardware demo if time allows. The physical version will use a phone camera, servo motor, Arduino, and a rotary control. The project will combine delayed controls, visual prediction overlays, and simple adaptive modeling. We also plan to use cloud and AI tools for deployment and post-run analysis as the project develops.
What we hope to learn We want to learn how latency changes human decision-making, how predictive interfaces can reduce over-correction, and how to communicate uncertainty clearly rather than presenting predictions as facts.
Challenges Our biggest challenges will be building a reliable real-time demo, keeping timing and prediction honest, integrating hardware safely, and validating whether the interface actually helps users perform better under delay.
