🧪 Elements Sandbox
Pour, mix and watch the elements react.
How to play
- Choose a Free Play scene, or an Experiment with a goal to reach.
- Pick an element from the buttons under the canvas, then draw with your mouse or finger. Hold still to keep pouring.
- Change the brush size with the four dot buttons (or the [ and ] keys). The sponge is an eraser.
- Mix elements and watch what happens: lava + water, lava + sand, fire + wood, seeds + water, ice + water, acid + rock, fire + fireworks.
- Press Pause (or Space) to freeze everything and take a look. Reset puts the scene back; Clear empties the canvas.
- In an Experiment, the goal counter at the top fills up as you go. Reach it for a star.
A pocket science lab made of pixels
Elements Sandbox is a free falling sand game: a small science lab where every grain of sand, drop of water and lick of flame is its own tiny pixel, simulated many times a second. Pick an element, draw it onto the canvas and watch it behave like the real thing. Sand pours into neat heaps and sinks slowly through water. Water runs downhill, spreads out and fills every gap. Oil floats on top of the water. Lava oozes along like thick syrup, glowing and shimmering as it goes.
The fun starts when the elements meet. Pour lava into a lake and it hisses into clouds of steam and hardens into grey stone. Drop fire onto a wooden hut and the flames spread plank by plank until only smoke is left. Scatter seeds along a river bank and watch them sprout into green stems topped with colourful flowers.
Seventeen elements to mix
Sand, salt, snow, seeds and firework powder are powders: they fall, pile up and slide off each other. Water, oil, acid and lava are liquids: they flow and find their level, and the heavier ones sink under the lighter ones. Wall, wood, stone, glass, ice and plants stay where you put them, so you can build tanks, dams, houses and gardens. Fire, smoke and steam rise, flicker and fade, and rain clouds hang in the sky and drip rain onto everything below.
Each element has its own personality. Ice slowly freezes the water that touches it, and salt melts ice. Plants creep across water and drink it up. Acid fizzes through sand, stone, wood and plants, but a glass or wall container keeps it safe. Firework powder does nothing at all until a spark or a flame touches it, and then the whole pile bursts into sparks of red, gold, green, blue and purple.
Nine science experiments
Want a challenge? The Experiments each set a goal and give you a hint. Make 150 stone by pouring lava into a pool. Grow a garden of flowers from seeds. Turn a desert into glass with lava. Boil a pool into a big cloud of steam. Put on a fireworks show with 300 sparks in the air at once. Freeze a whole pond, burn off a tank of oil, make it rain 500 drops and dissolve 400 bits of rock with acid. A counter at the top shows how close you are, and every experiment you finish earns a star.
Five scenes for free play
Free Play is pure sandbox fun with no goals. Start from an empty lab, or from one of four ready-made scenes: a sunny beach with sea and sand, a stone volcano with a crater full of lava and lakes on each side, a forest with trees, a pond, a rain cloud and seeds waiting to grow, or a snowy winter scene with a frozen pond. Pour lava down the volcano into the lake, set the forest alight and put it out with water, or melt the snow with fire. Reset brings the scene back whenever you want to start again.
Learning through play
A falling sand game is a playful way to meet real science ideas: density (why oil floats and sand sinks), states of matter (ice melting into water and boiling into steam), what burns and what doesn't, how plants need water to grow, and how acids react with some materials but not others. Children discover the rules by experimenting, which is exactly how scientists work. It also builds patience and planning when a big idea, like a dam holding back a lake of lava, needs a few tries.
Free, safe and made for kids
Elements Sandbox is free, runs in any modern browser on computers, tablets and phones, and needs no download or sign-up. There are no ads inside the game and no chat, and your experiment stars are saved only in your own browser. Parents can read more on the Parents & Safety page. For more physics fun, try Demolition Simulator, Ragdoll Stunt Lab, Power Wash Cleanup or the rest of our Sandbox Games.
Frequently asked questions
What is a falling sand game?
It is a sandbox where every grain or drop is a tiny pixel that moves on its own. You pour elements like sand, water and lava onto the screen and watch them fall, flow and react with each other.
Is Elements Sandbox free?
Yes. It is free to play in the browser with no download, no account and no in-game purchases.
How do I make stone?
Pour lava into water. Where they touch, the lava cools into stone and the water boils into steam.
How do I grow flowers?
Choose Seeds and sprinkle them onto sand or ground next to water, or under a rain cloud. When a seed touches water it sprouts a stem that grows up and opens into a flower.
How do the fireworks work?
Pour a pile of firework powder, then touch it with fire or lava. It bursts into bright coloured sparks, and the sparks set off the rest of the pile.
Does it work on phones and tablets?
Yes. Tap an element under the canvas and draw with your finger. Hold your finger still to keep pouring.