Leave it as you found it?
A patch starts at height 1. It either stays frozen or regrows before each operation. Can you learn which rule it follows and still return it to its starting height?
Both possible rules have the same starting surface. Heights are arbitrary toy units.
First reader
The initial height is known to be 1. The rule is not yet known from any readings.
Frozen 50.00% · regrowing 50.00%
0 operations. This toy allows at most 12; there is no target count.
What the operations mean
Before each operation, a regrowing patch gains one unit with probability (2 − current height) / 2. A frozen patch does not grow. Waiting observes the result. Wearing removes one unit, down to zero, and then observes it.
The inference uses an equal prior over the two rules and the actual sequence of observed heights. In a known control it deliberately ignores the extra information supplied by the scenario label. The known controls and the reveal button are answer keys outside that inference protocol. These conditional probabilities are not the average guessing success reported in the note.
Two routes worth comparing
Try waiting until the height reaches 2, then wearing it once. Compare that with wearing first, and waiting once if the first reading is zero. Does knowing the rule always mean leaving the patch as you found it?
After sealing, the surface remains visible while the record is withheld. An endpoint can be informative if the protocol is known; it is not necessarily the whole record of the encounter.