Practicing prestidig...prestidigiti...illusions requires one to take another in to one's confidence...or...
The assistant makes use of an optic to discretion between light and dark then store and reference the variance for a pass-fail search. The mechanical function is operated by an Arduino Uno and communicated by our resident artificial automation Jacob.
Notations 1. Seeing as it was noted in a comment, the card coincidentally at the bottom is NOT the card Jacob chose if you look closely. I am no hack...see what I did there?!