Section 1 — What you will learn
✓ By the end you will understand
- Variance: how “spread out” your data is.
- PC1: the direction where data spreads the most (maximum variance).
- Projection: dropping shadows of points onto the PC line.
- Information retained: how much variance we kept after squishing.
- Why PCA exists: compress data while keeping the main structure.
How to play (super simple):
1) Press Start → watch the 3 cinematic phases.
2) Move Manual Angle to feel “wrong angle vs best angle”.
3) Try Break it 💥 → see PCA fail when the data is too symmetric/noisy.
4) Press 3D Mode → watch a 3D cloud collapse into 2D.
1) Press Start → watch the 3 cinematic phases.
2) Move Manual Angle to feel “wrong angle vs best angle”.
3) Try Break it 💥 → see PCA fail when the data is too symmetric/noisy.
4) Press 3D Mode → watch a 3D cloud collapse into 2D.
Section 2 — Controls
Story helps kids remember what “information retained” means.
Manual override: turn it ON to feel why PCA chooses the best angle.
Section 3 — Live stats
Information retained
—
Information lost
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PC1 power (eigenvalue)
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PC2 power (eigenvalue)
—
Reconstruction error
—
Phase progress
—
Live chart
Retained variance & error trend (updates live)
Scree plot
How much each component explains
Section 4 — Live math (kid-simple)
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🧠 Kid Coach
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Tip: PCA chooses the angle with maximum spread.