Brain Out Level 189
📝 Walkthrough
Overview
Level 189 says "Make the paper windmill spin fast!" The board shows a colorful pinwheel windmill standing on a wooden stick on the left, a battery sitting on the right, and two loose wires (one red, one blue) curling across the bottom of the screen. The obvious idea is to wire the battery to the windmill so an electric motor spins it. But there are no motor contacts to connect, and the wires are not actually draggable into a usable circuit. The Brain Out twist uses the phone's accelerometer: you physically shake the device back and forth, and the windmill spins on its own, as if real wind were blowing it.
- Difficulty: Easy
- Estimated moves: 1
Step-by-Step Solution
- Look at the windmill, the battery, and the two loose wires. The battery and wires look like they should be wired into the windmill, but there is no motor terminal to connect them to and the wires do not snap into place.
- Do not try to drag the battery or the wires around. That path is a dead end; the puzzle is not an electric-circuit puzzle.
- Hold your phone in one hand. Straighten your arm so the device can move freely.
- Shake the phone left and right rapidly, three or four times, as if you were waving a real paper windmill to make it catch the wind.
- The windmill on screen spins up to a fast blur. Once it is spinning fast enough, the level-complete pop-up appears with the line "The paper windmill is turning!" Tap Next to continue.
- If shaking alone does not trigger it, tap the windmill once with a finger and then immediately start shaking the phone; the tap wakes the accelerometer input for the next few seconds.
Strategy & Reasoning
The puzzle is a hardware-gimmick level. Brain Out occasionally uses the phone's built-in sensors — tilt, shake, microphone — instead of taps and drags. This is one of those levels. The battery and wires are set dressing to make you think of electricity, but a paper windmill does not need electricity; it needs wind. The game simulates wind by reading your phone's motion.
Wiring the battery to the windmill fails because the wires are decorative. Dragging the battery closer to the windmill also does nothing. Tapping the windmill once makes it twitch but does not sustain the spin. Only shaking the device provides enough simulated wind to get the pinwheel up to speed.
This level teaches the habit of considering the hardware. When a puzzle on a mobile phone shows a physical object like a windmill, a die, or a bell, think about which sensor the game could be reading: shake, tilt, microphone, or camera. The congratulatory line "The paper windmill is turning!" confirms the shake input registered.
Tips & Common Mistakes
- Trying to connect the battery to the windmill with the wires. The circuit is a decoy; there is no motor.
- Tapping the windmill repeatedly. A tap only makes it twitch; you need the motion of the phone.
- Shaking too gently. The accelerometer needs a firm left-right motion, like waving a real pinwheel.