- [Voiceover] Shall we begin?
(light music)
Let's begin.
- Welcome back to What's Inside.
I'm Lincoln, this is my dad, Dan,
and today we're going to cut open Etch a Sketch.
- That's right, finally.
There's going to be many of you in the comments
that are going to be like,
yes, you're finally doing this.
I've been asking you about it for a year.
We've seen your comments, I promise.
But it turns out, it's really difficult to find somebody
that actually knows how to use an Etch a Sketch well.
- I know how to draw a box
but that's pretty much the best that I can do.
- Good news is, this last week we found a girl,
her name is Madeline,
she is fantastic at using an Etch a Sketch.
She showed us a few tips
and in fact, the little intro that you just saw
with our logo,
she spent about an hour making that.
And the second reason
why we've been delaying this video
is because we lived in New Mexico
for three and a half years
and it was during the time that they were filming
the very popular show, Breaking Bad.
Walt, the chemist teacher turned bad drug dealer,
takes an Etch a Sketch
and takes the contents somehow
and turns it into a fire that burns five thousand degress
and opens an actual lock.
So I've wanted to find somebody
that is smart enough to pull that off
because I don't know if that's going to work
and also somebody that is crazy enough
to play with a five thousand degree fire.
- That's why I'm here.
I'm ready to crack things open
and see what's inside
and I've got some ideas
of maybe how to do the same thing
Walt was doing there
so we'll see if we can get that to work.
- This is Grant Thompson, the King of Random.
For the last five years, he's been making videos.
Has over five million subscribers on YouTube.
His stuff is so creative and fun to watch.
So first let's learn a little bit about the Etch a Sketch
and then let's cut these bad boys open.
- Yeah.
- [Dan] So for people that are just starting,
what are a couple of basic tips?
- First start out by just learning
how to make basic shapes.
Just learn how to draw a circle,
learn how to draw a triangle.
You just got to get a feel for the knobs.
- A circle sounds hard
because you would have to move both knobs.
- Yeah, that's why you just have to get a feel for them
and at first it will be really shaky
but the more you do it,
the more smooth it will become.
- So it's funny
because I was watching this one video that she sent me
and at the beginning it has these little eggs
and I'm thinking, it's Easter and it's great
and then this bird shows up.
I'm like, it's so cute.
That's nice.
Then all of a sudden, it's this skull and I'm like,
oh, it's a skull.
- Honestly, it was just a picture I saw
and I just wanted to try it.
- You just happened to have the mini eggs just there.
- Oh yeah, I always snack on stuff while I sketch.
Just passes the time.
- So much fun to see somebody
that actually knows how to use this thing.
I feel much better about taking it apart
now that we've actually
done some really good things on it.
We'll put a link in the description below
to either Instagram or YouTube
and then you can go on and see some of her work.
So Lincoln, you ready to see what's inside
an Etch a Sketch?
- Yes, I'm worried too.
I'm worried but I'm excited.
I'm mainly excited.
- We're in Grant's workshop
so you don't have to be worried.
He knows what he's doing.
- For one thing,
I do not know what's inside an Etch a Sketch
so I don't know if there's anything important in here
to break or not
so we're just going to try one corner
and hopefully miss anything vital.
- The good thing is
we have six Etch a Sketches
that we're going to cut open today
so we're good to go.
Grant, you have the honors.
This is your place.
Let's cut the first corner off this thing.
- Alright.
(exciting music)
- Yeah.
- Yes.
We got a little powder flying out.
- Check it out.
I actually just missed the little rollers there
or whatever they are.
That's probably about as close as we could have got it.
- Nice cut.
- Yeah.
- Oh, look at this little gray powder right here.
- That's the powder in the Etch a Sketch.
- Oh, that sticks.
- If it's what I'm thinking it is,
it should not stick to a magnet
so I got a magnet here we can do a little test with
so give that a try.
Wave it over.
Let's see if any of that powder
actually sticks to the magnet.
Magnetic.
- It's not happening at all.
- Why doesn't it stick to it?
It's just not metal?
- The only metal that sticks to a magnet is steel.
Steel or iron.
Alright, let's see if there's anything even in there.
I just,
oh, dude.
That's actually a lot more than I expected.
- [Dan] That's a lot.
- [Grant] It's still going.
- [Lincoln] Oh my.
- [Grant] Wow, I guess they pack these things full.
- [Dan] There's a ton in it.
Good thing we bought six of them.
So much in one of them.
- That was really a lot more than I expected.
- Look at that.
There's like,
you can see.
- Oh, look at that.
Look how silvery that is.
That is crazy.
Whoa.
- Good luck cleaning that.
That's why we came here.
So we didn't have to clean this up.
- Yeah, that's honestly quite a bit more than I expected.
So I think we go enough there for some experiments
so I'll tell you what,
I'll go ahead and start getting work on this
and seeing what it can do.
In the meantime,
why don't you guys crack these things open
and see what's really inside.
- Okay.
- I'll catch up with you guys in a bit.
- Okay.
- Alright.
- [Dan] If you look inside of the core that we cut,
when I turn the knobs,
you can see wires moving on those little rollers.
I worry that if we go into the side too much,
that it's going to hurt those strings and those rollers
so let's get the screen off first.
Okay.
Let's give it a little tippy taps.
See the smoke coming out?
- [Lincoln] It's flying straight at me.
- [Dan] Oh my gosh.
Did you see that?
- [Lincoln] You cracked the whole screen.
Oh, it's a layer of plastic then it's glass.
That's why it's so hard to hit that.
- [Dan] That's actually really safe if you think about it
because if kids drop it and it breaks,
the glass will just turn into pieces everywhere.
Oh, look at that.
Dang.
There we go, Lincoln.
Look what's inside of that.
When you turn the knobs,
look at that little metal thing.
- [Lincoln] That's awesome.
- [Dan] So what happens is
you have this metal pointer right there.
The glass typically is coated with the aluminum powder
and then when you twist it,
it makes the scratches on it
so whenever you're done with it
and you take it and you shake it,
all the aluminum powder that's at the bottom
comes up and it sticks to that glass
and it coats it again
and then you just start scratching away at it again.
And then those strings that we saw earlier,
you can see them in the corners when you turn it,
the strings are what pulls it along.
- I actually didn't know how it works
so I had no clue what it would be like inside.
- [Dan] We kind of have a bit of a mess here.
Oh, no.
Oh, look at my hands, dude.
- What?
- [Dan] They're just caked with this stuff.
- Alright, so we cut all of them open.
- [Dan] I can already see the hashtags
that you guys are going to produce
in the comment section.
Stop Etch a Sketch violence.
Grant's going to need the insides
of everyone of those
so got some cups.
Let's pour the insides of that in there.
Look at that cup.
- [Lincoln] That is a ton.
- If you can see it,
there's little tiny beads in there.
Those are actually Styrofoam beads,
polystyrene is what it's called,
but it's in there to smooth out
and re-coat the inside of the screen
with aluminum powders.
Because it's not just all the aluminum,
I wonder how the experiment's going to go
and if Grant can actually make
the five thousand degree fire with this.
- I hope it does.
It would be really cool.
- Yeah, it would be cool.
- Check that out.
Ew, dude.
- Yucky.
- Here we go.
We came outside to see what the experiment was like
and we've done some crazy things.
We're not going to tell you
whether the actual experiment with the Etch a Sketch
stuff worked.
You'll want to see this
which I know you'll want to see it.
Go to Grant Thompson, the King of Random's channel.
He's going to have an epic video.
Slow motion everything
of how this came to be,
how this was once five Etch a Sketches
and now it's this pile of melted plastic.
- It's amazing and it smells terrible.
- It does.
- We've been watching Grant for years.
Go watch his stuff.
He has amazing content, great videos.
Totally unique.
If you're not subscribed already,
go subscribe.