The crates hide their weight. Your only instrument is a balance that answers one question — which side is heavier? — and every question is one tick on the brass counter. To sort blind, you must pay in comparisons.
That is exactly how a computer sorts things it can only compare: names, dates, prices. The interesting number is not the seconds — it is how many comparisons the method needs, because that is what grows.
Hand-sorting and bubble sort grow like n²: double the shipment and the work roughly quadruples. Merge sort grows like n log n — double the shipment and the counter barely notices. Watch the growth meter cross below 1.3 for merge.
No comparison sort can beat about log₂(n!) questions — 16 for eight crates. Big-O is not a symbol here; it is a reading on a meter.
Something in the simulation stopped unexpectedly — the lesson continues without it. Nothing you did was wrong; you can move on.