Curious to see what’s going on inside of your Etch A Sketch? Curiosity is a good thing, but be warned, if you take apart that Etch A Sketch, you will have metal shavings everywhere, and probably fill your lungs with toxic dust. So you might want to enjoy this experiment from afar.
YouTubers What’s Inside? and Grant Thompson wanted to know what the guts of the classic drawing toy looked like. So naturally they dissected some so we can all enjoy it. Turns out it is mostly very fine aluminum powder. This is what coats the glass screen and gives it that grey color. Aside from that, it is basically just the metal pointer, it’s position controlled by strings attached to the knobs. Moving the knobs scrapes the aluminum powder away, creating your drawing.
Check out the video below to see what secrets this toy has within it’s red box. You can skip ahead to 3:02 to see the mess:
Seriously, don’t do this at home. You will never clean up all of that metal powder. And your wife will kill you.
[via Sploid]