thesandbox.page

A survey of web experiments, staked out one plot at a time

Sheet 1 · Scale varies · Surveyed daily

Plots

  1. Plot 25Jack-o'-lanternClaimed A pumpkin on the kitchen table and a carving kit: saw off the lid, cut, gouge, and scrape a face into the wall, then put out the lamp, light the candle inside, and turn it to see where the light gets out.
  2. Plot 24Seeing thingsClaimed Ten figures that fool the eye: set a line, a tabletop, a circle, a row of tiles, or a shade until it looks right and the page measures how far off you were, then watch dots flicker that aren't there, a still picture turn, and a ghost of a colour nobody drew run round a ring.
  3. Plot 23DatamoshClaimed A video codec written for this page so it can be broken: cut between reels without a keyframe and one picture is dragged along by the next one's motion, hold a frame to make it flow, or turn on your camera and smear the picture with your own movement.
  4. Plot 22Signal boxClaimed A mechanical signal box at a country junction in 1964: answer the bells from the boxes either side, pull the levers the interlocking will let you, and keep every train on the timetable through a dawn, an afternoon, and a night shift.
  5. Plot 21Sea sparkleClaimed A tank of glowing plankton that lives behind your screen: drag the browser window and the water sloshes and lights up blue, then open a second window and pour it from one into the other.
  6. Plot 20TintypeClaimed A wet-plate portrait studio: pour collodion over a sheet of black iron, sit still before your camera for a few seconds, then develop and fix the plate under the safelight and watch your mirror image clear out of the cream.
  7. Plot 19StereogramClaimed A field of dots with a solid world hidden in it, redrawn live as it moves: relax your eyes and a ring turns in the air, a pond ripples where you tap, your own words stand off the page, a shape you carve blind comes up out of the dots, and a test finds the smallest step in depth you can see.
  8. Plot 18The coast at nightClaimed Sixty thousand lighthouses, beacons, and buoys from the NGA and USCG lists of lights, each flashing its own published character on a night chart of the world, with coloured sectors you can read like a mariner and a view from the deck of a boat you put anywhere at sea.
  9. Plot 17SundialClaimed A slate garden sundial laid out for any place on Earth: choose where it stands and the hour lines, date lines, and noon figure eight are cut again for that latitude, the real sun lights the engraving and casts the gnomon's shadow, and a print sheet makes one you can set up outside.
  10. Plot 16Hill runClaimed Three ways down a hill, printed as sports posters: bomb a city street on a skateboard ahead of the street sweeper, chase a cheese down a grass bank with a second one bouncing after you, and ride a luge through floodlit night with the four-man bob coming down behind.
  11. Plot 15Pin tumblerClaimed A pin-tumbler lock cut open down the middle: set the tension, find the pin that binds, lift it until it clicks at the shear line, and work through spools, serrations, and finally a lock you can only hear.
  12. Plot 14TeletextClaimed A working teletext service on a glass tube: key a three-digit number and wait for the page to come round, then read today's news, weather, markets, and earthquakes in forty columns of block graphics, or play a quiz that sends you back to the start.
  13. Plot 13The undercroftClaimed A stone labyrinth drawn as 576 engraved plates, one static page for every place you can stand and way you can face: walk it by following links, step back with the back button, and climb toward the daylight while your own browser history inks in the chart.
  14. Plot 12SeismographClaimed A drum recorder wired to a real seismometer: pick a vault anywhere from Albuquerque to Antarctica, watch the pen write the last day of ground motion, see where each earthquake's waves should land, and hear the whole day sped up six thousand times.
  15. Plot 11MarblingClaimed A marbler's trough of size: float drops of pigment, draw a stylus, rake, or comb through them, and lay a sheet of paper down to pull a print of every vein.
  16. Plot 10Music boxClaimed A thirty-note paper-strip music box on a walnut table: punch holes in the strip, turn the crank, and every hole plucks a steel tooth that rings with its own inharmonic overtones.
  17. Plot 9Ad hellClaimed A modest toast recipe buried under every ad format the industry agreed to retire and every deceptive pattern in the catalog: read it to the end, or flip the ad blocker and watch it all fall away.
  18. Plot 8Word brushClaimed A blank sheet where the brush lays down prose instead of paint: every stroke makes room, and a whole passage reflows through your drawing as you make it, like a calligram that sets itself.
  19. Plot 7Fishing holeClaimed A pixel lake cut open from the side: cast from the dock, watch fish come to the bait, strike when the float goes under, and play the line until one is landed.
  20. Plot 6Slime moldClaimed A petri dish where a million WebGPU agents play Physarum polycephalum: drop oat flakes and it grows a transport network between them, shy away from a lamp, and thread a maze of salt.
  21. Plot 5Favicon labClaimed This page takes over its own tab icon: play Snake in it, paint it, watch it slow down when you look away, test it for HDR, and run a scrolling sign across a row of tabs.
  22. Plot 4ArrivalsClaimed A split-flap arrivals board for Wikipedia: every row is an edit landing somewhere in the world right now, and the board pops out into a window that floats over everything.
  23. Plot 3Singing sandClaimed A Chladni plate: drive it at a pitch, or sing to it, and watch twenty-two thousand grains find the lines that stay still.
  24. Plot 2The golden angleClaimed Eight hundred seeds placed by CSS sibling-index() alone, with no JavaScript; scroll to twist the angle and watch the spiral fall into spokes.
  25. Plot 1Falling sandClaimed The site's first home page, from 3 Oct 2026, retired to its own plot: a beach of falling sand where the title crumbles at a touch and the first three experiments lie buried for digging.
  26. Survey officeThe RegisterThe survey office: every experiment on record, with its date and whether your browser can run it.