It’s human nature to immediately pick up and play with an Etch A Sketch whenever you see one. It’s in the Hall of Fame of toys (does that exist?), and almost everyone has struggled making anything more than squiggly lines with its knobs. But did you know that you can actually make an Etch A Sketch toy at home? Yeah.
Steve Hoefer of MAKE delves into the history behind the Etch A Sketch and then shows you how to build it in accordance to the patent. Creating the pulley mechanism to control the Etch a Sketch isn’t so hard, but re-creating the magic screen takes some, well, magic. In any case, it’s fascinating to see how one of children’s favourite toys (it’s the tablet for when we were kids!) works. [MAKE via Mental Floss]