Two small tools built around one real piece of science from September 2026: the first complete wiring map of a fruit fly's brain. One trains reflexes for the class screen; the other lets a kid race their swat against the actual neurons that make a fly nearly impossible to catch.
The science, in three lines
- In September 2026, Google Research and HHMI Janelia published MaleCNS v1.0 — the complete wiring diagram of a male fruit fly's brain and nerve cord: 166,700 neurons, about 125 million synaptic connections, ten years in the making.
- A fly escapes a swat using one "Giant Fibre" neuron fed by ~445 eye neurons watching for something looming closer. It can fire in a handful of milliseconds. A human reaction is about 150–250 ms — and that's with 86 billion neurons.
- The dataset is free to download. Within days, developers had wired it into Doom, Super Mario 64, Minecraft, and Beat Saber — letting a real insect's brain drive a video game character.
The two tools
A classic reaction-time test — wait for green, tap fast, five rounds. Built for the class screen: type a name and class code, get a score card, see the whole class's best times on a live leaderboard.
Open the trainer →A buzzing fly, a target reticle, and a real neural circuit racing your tap. Tap the bullseye for a fast, decisive swat; tap the outer ring and the fly's actual Giant Fibre circuit gets a real chance to escape — watch it happen on the live Eyes → Brain → Jump track.
Open Catch the Fly →Run the Reflex Trainer on the class screen
- Open flybrain.dhaw.al on the classroom computer or smartboard.
- A student types their first name and your class code (any short code you choose, e.g. 2M), then taps Start the test.
- Red means wait. Green means tap as fast as you can. Five rounds, then a score card appears.
- Tap Next player for the next student. The class code is remembered on that computer.
- Open flybrain.dhaw.al/class/2M (your code) to show the live leaderboard. It refreshes on its own.
No screen? Use a ruler
One student holds a 30 cm ruler at the top. The other holds thumb and finger open at the zero mark. Drop it without warning; they catch it. Read the centimetres and look up the time:
| Caught at | Reaction time |
|---|---|
| 10 cm | 143 ms |
| 15 cm | 175 ms |
| 20 cm | 202 ms |
| 25 cm | 226 ms |
| 30 cm | 247 ms |
Privacy
The Reflex Trainer stores a first name, a class code, and reaction times — no surnames, emails, logins, or photos. Nothing identifies a child outside the classroom. You can wipe your class board any time with the teacher PIN, which you'll get from the parent who shared this with you. Catch the Fly stores nothing at all — every round runs and resets in the browser.
Data & credit
Neuron and synapse data from the Google Research × HHMI Janelia MaleCNS v1.0 connectome (published Sept 2026), accessed via neuprint.janelia.org, used here to drive a real-time simulation in the browser. Not affiliated with Google or Janelia — a parent-built teaching tool using their public dataset.