This was an enjoyable read, thank you for sharing it. Some random stuff that I thought about while reading the story:

- Human vision compensates for visual input latency by combining recent input with past input https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.722.842&rep=rep1&type=pdf
- Implementing boolean logic circuits with air (pneumatics) https://www.powermotiontech.com/home/article/21122363/basics-of-pneumatic-logic