Get smart curated videos delivered to your inbox.   SUBSCRIBE
The Kid Should See This

How to make a Hollow Mask Illusion

Watch more with these video collections:

How do we perceive faces? With some balloons, newspaper, some paste for paper mâché, and paints, you can create a hollow mask that appears to follow you as you move back and forth around the room. Rachel and her children Eva and Daniel investigate the illusion in this video from The Royal Institution‘s ExpeRimental series, a resource that can help parents set up fun, easy, and cheap science experiments at home.

This classic illusion can baffle brains of all ages. Making the masks can help us explore why it works (or doesn’t work), and why our brains can be so easily tricked. Here’s the Einstein mask in video form:

This series of ExpeRimental is supported by The British Psychological Society. To avoid any spoilers/test conclusions, pause the video at 3m50s. Find the full instruction sheet here (pdf).

Watch more experiment videos and demonstration videos on this site, including more DIY science from Ri.

This Webby award-winning video collection exists to help teachers, librarians, and families spark kid wonder and curiosity. TKSST features smarter, more meaningful content than what's usually served up by YouTube's algorithms, and amplifies the creators who make that content.

Curated, kid-friendly, independently-published. Support this mission by becoming a sustaining member today.

🌈 Watch these videos next...

The Science Behind String Telephones

Rion Nakaya

The Reversing Arrow Illusion: An amazing & easy trick for all ages

Rion Nakaya

The Color Changing Milk Experiment

Rion Nakaya

Spaghetti bridges, a DIY engineering activity for kids (and adults)

Rion Nakaya

Soap Powered Boats – ExpeRimental

Rion Nakaya

Skittles candy dissolves into rainbows

Rion Nakaya

Scanimated Optical Illusion

Rion Nakaya

Quirkology’s 10 Amazing Optical Illusions (and how to make them)

Rion Nakaya

Party hacks: How to make paper, edible straws, & leafetti

Rion Nakaya