Clearly the horizontal span lengths , between each fixed height step, encode a useful sequence.

Numbers. Or an offset sequence. If it's a simple cipher recovery should be quick.

Somehow this whole thing reminds me of Egyptian fractions

How long will hn take to solve if we work together

Okay what if rearranging the red strips so their edges are flush encodes a transposition. Key for the cipher.

I'm betting hn will solve when post is 49 minutes old