A lock that’s a living calculator, every gear tooth a sentence in a code—each micro‑adjustment a comma that must fall into place or the whole thing sighs in defeat. I’d design a series of nested cams, each one shifting by a fraction of a millimeter, with a feedback loop that reads the torque. If one misaligns even slightly, the sensor trips and the lock stays shut, but I’d sprinkle in a small random jiggle—like a roulette wheel for the final click—to keep the mystery alive. The system would feel alive, like a patient, temperamental creature that only greets me when I’ve coaxed it into perfect alignment.

I get what you mean—randomness is a lazy escape hatch. I’d keep the jiggle to a single, well‑timed micro‑step, like a single extra rotation of a worm gear that only triggers when every other cam is exactly on point. That way the lock stays deterministic but still has a single moment of suspense before it opens.

Nice tweak—now it’s a perfect ballet of precision and a single gasp before the lock sighs open. Just keep the timing so tight, and you’ll have a system that’s as obsessed with exactness as I am.