Feels like a city. Works like a lab.

A session takes 15 to 20 minutes. Your child rides the train to a district, tests a machine, and figures out how it decides. They learn how AI works by testing it, and never talk to a live AI.

15–20 minute sessions
No timers. No losing.
Voiced, with captions
No typing at 8–10

Drag to pan · hold Ctrl or ⌘ and scroll to zoomUse two fingers to move and zoom the city. With the drawing focused, arrow keys pan, plus and minus zoom and 0 resets.

One session, six stops

Districts

Academy Plaza (centre): Home base on a raised deck round the Academy Spire: arrival, missions and Maker Commons.
Lantern Market (south, on the river): Awnings, food stalls and lantern strings on the Lantern River, where children ask what counts as AI.
Greenline Park (west): Trees, terraces and sensor masts, with the Observatory on Lens Hill: what can a machine notice?
The Foundry (north): The largest district: rail yards, workshops and cranes, where machines learn, get tested and get fixed.
Storyworks (north-east): Studios and the Holo-Stage dome, where children explore how AI makes something new.
Clocktower (south-east): Civic towers, a stone archive and the city hall dome: can we trust it, and who decides?
Skyport (far south-east, at the river mouth): Skyport: airship docks, cargo cranes and scaffolding.

Stations on the Inner Loop, in order

Spire Station: Where the Inner Loop starts and ends, beside the Spire. A glass lift climbs to the Skyline Loop.
Market Station: First stop, on the river by the Lantern Arch.
Greenline Station: Second stop, in the treetops of Greenline Park.
Foundry Station: Third stop, between the workshops and the rail yards.
Storyworks Station: Fourth stop, beside the Holo-Stage dome.
Clocktower Station: Fifth stop, close enough to the Archive Clock Tower to see its gears. The Skyport Express leaves from its own platform here.

Landmarks

The Academy Spire: The tall landmark in the centre, visible from everywhere, with the Skyline platform at its top.
The Lantern Arch: The landmark of Lantern Market, over the street that leads to the river.
The Observatory on Lens Hill: A domed observatory on a terraced hill in Greenline Park.
The Big Crane: A gantry crane striding over the Foundry rail yards.
The Learning Engine: A tower of light cables in the Foundry.
The Holo-Stage dome: The great dome of Storyworks.
The Archive Clock Tower: Clocktower’s landmark, with a clock face and gears you can see from the train.

Lines

The Inner Loop: The city’s train. It runs one way round on a raised viaduct, from Spire Station through Market, Greenline, the Foundry, Storyworks and Clocktower, and back to the Spire. Trains pause at every station.
The Skyline Loop: A high ring round the rim of the city, above everything, reached from a platform at the top of the Spire. One glass-roofed panoramic car, no stops.
The Skyport Express: From its own platform at Clocktower out to Skyport. Earned after missions F01 to F11; not open yet.

/// STOP 1 _ SPIRE STATION

Arrive by train.

Before your child plays, you spend about two minutes on setup, behind a parent check.

A Mechna Academy session takes 15 to 20 minutes and follows a child from the train to a saved Discovery Card.

Then the first ride. A train circles the city at dusk while the districts light up one by one, and glides into the top of the Spire. A glass lift brings your child down to Spire Station.

Your child picks a look and a nickname from a safe list, and gets an Apprentice Band: their pass around the city.

About two minutes of parent setup
No forms, no tutorial screens, no entry test
The first mission starts within about five minutes

/// STOP 2 _ THE INNER LOOP

Every train is the right train.

The Inner Loop runs one way round, from Spire Station through the five districts and back. Your child can’t take a wrong train.

The Band counts down and chimes one stop before your child’s station. Miss a stop, and the loop comes back in about two minutes.

Every stretch has its moment: lanterns on the river, the Foundry’s giant robot arms, a treetop forest, a tunnel of projected stories, the gears of the clock. On the train there’s nothing to do but ride and look.

Go to lab is always there, so walking is never required
A motion-comfort mode keeps the camera steady

/// STOP 3 _ DISTRICT LAB

Someone needs help.

Each district is one side of AI, and each lab sits where that kind of AI would live in a real city.

Spot: a resident explains the problem, and who built the machine and why. Every lesson starts with a person’s real goal.

Every AI machine has the same five parts
Machines show states, never feelings
No machine has a face

/// STOP 4 _ THE WORKBENCH

Open up a working machine.

Try: your child runs the machine on everyday cases and watches what comes out.

Guess: before anything opens, your child commits to a guess about how it decides. The guess is kept exactly as given, and “can’t tell yet” counts.

Peek: the hatch unlocks only after the guess, and shows how the machine decides, in pictures at ages 8 to 10.

Purpose plateWho made it, and why.
IN trayWhat goes in.
OUT screenWhat comes out.
RUN buttonRun it and watch.
Peek HatchHow it decides. Locked until you guess.

/// STOP 5 _ TEST TRACK

It fails. You fix it.

Machines show when they’re ready, running or stuck, but a machine can be wrong without knowing it. Spotting that is the lesson.

Tweak: your child changes one thing, guesses what will happen, then runs it and compares before and after.

Prove: a fresh case the machine has never seen. Guess first, then check.

Stuck
It fails.
The Toast Checker looks at a picture of toast and says “done” or “not yet”. It’s ready, it runs, and it calls a pale slice “done”, sure of itself. The machine doesn’t know it’s wrong; your child spots it, then guesses what it’s looking at.
Running
You fix it.
The Peek Hatch opens: the machine holds the toast against a strip of shades, and its “done” mark sits too far toward pale. Your child moves that one mark, and guesses what will happen before running it again.
Ready
It works.
A slice the machine has never seen. Guess first, then RUN. This time it gets it right, and your child checks why it worked.

Illustration: the Toast Checker, a practice machine, not from any mission

Hints come in three levels: nudge, point and show
Hints are there whenever your child asks, and never count against them

/// STOP 6 _ NEXT STATION _ OPENING

Earn the next train.

Keep: your child saves a Discovery Card in their own words, built from sentence tiles and linked to the evidence they used. Every session ends with a saved card and a reason to come back.

A district’s station opens when its missions come up. New lines open at milestones that mean your child is ready, never after a count of lessons: the Skyline Loop after the first mission, and the Skyport Express for the last.

Rewards are knowledge and places, not coins

/// SECTOR 02 _ THREE LEVELS _ ONE CITY

What changes by age.

One city, seen from three levels. Mechna Academy grows with a child, and never talks down to one.

Children aged 8 to 10 begin with spoken instructions, picture choices and sentence tiles, without typing.

8–10
The street
Start here
Voice first, with picture choices and sentence tiles. No typing and no Python.
11–13
The Under level, by the Deep Line
As they grow
Code missions on the same machines, and a modest programming foundation: read a small program, predict it, change it, test it.
14+
The Above level, by the Tower Line
As they grow
Casefiles on how AI shapes the city. Advanced code is optional.

Age sets the starting point: there's no entry test, and nobody repeats anything. From the first day, children can see the Deep Line and the Tower Line running through the city.

/// SECTOR 03 _ PARENT PLATFORM

What you see.

You stay in charge of the starting point and the settings that help your child take part.

Parents set an age group and reading, voice, text-size and motion settings before their child plays.

Parent setup

Setup for each child in about two minutes, behind a parent check
An age group for each child, not a birth date
Reading, voice, text-size and motion-comfort support
Whether your child may open the next level early
Your child’s Discovery Journal, their own record, kept on the device

Your child’s record

The Discovery Journal keeps your child’s own record on the device
First guesses stay as given, alongside the evidence your child used

Read the city rules on safety

/// SECTOR 04 _ LEARNING BY TESTING

Why it’s learning, not just play.

The fun is how it’s delivered. The learning is how it’s designed.

Children guess before they look, change one thing at a time and test their idea on a fresh case.

Guess first, then peek
The hatch can’t open until the guess is in, so your child thinks before they look.
One cause at a time
Changing one thing at a time keeps the comparison fair.
A fresh case
A case the machine has never seen tests understanding, not memory.
No timers, no losing
Missions are untimed, and “can’t tell yet” counts, because sometimes it’s the honest answer.
An honest record
First guesses are kept as given, and finishing a mission never claims mastery.

/// ANSWERS

Before you board.

What does a child do in a Mechna session?

A session runs 15 to 20 minutes. Your child rides the Inner Loop train to a district, meets a resident who needs help and tries that resident’s machine. They guess how it decides, then open its Peek Hatch to check. They change one thing and test it, try a case the machine has never seen, and save what they found on a Discovery Card.

Does my child need to know how to code?

No. At ages 8 to 10 there’s no Python and no typing: answers are picture choices and sentence tiles, and every instruction is spoken and captioned. At 11 to 13, children read, predict, change and test a small program. At 14 and up, advanced code is optional.

What can parents set up?

You set up each child before they play, behind a parent check: an age group rather than a birth date, plus reading, voice, text-size and motion support. Your child’s Discovery Journal keeps their own record on the device.

How does my child learn?

Every machine’s hatch stays locked until your child commits a guess, so they think before they look. They change one thing at a time so the test is fair, and prove what they found on a case the machine has never seen. Hints never count against a child, and finishing a mission never claims mastery.

Your child’s first train.

From the first train to a machine your child can explain. Places are limited.

Join the waitlist Read the research