Google buried 1,605 weird and wonderful experiments — here's 5 you need to see

1. Song Maker

If you fancy yourself a musician but lack the instruments, or, let's be honest, the talent— just fire up Song Maker, one of the many cool tools in Chrome Music Lab.

It lets you compose music simply by clicking on a grid. You can choose from a host of instruments ranging from piano and strings to synth and woodwind. You can also add percussion beats, and adjust the tempo. You can even use your microphone to sing a note.

For something so simple, there’s much to sink your teeth into. I love that it has a good range of options such as beats per bar and range, plus you can also connect electronic keyboards. Sharing songs is as easy as creating a link. It really is something to make noise about.

2. Radio Garden

When I was younger, I used to spend a good amount of time exploring all of the different radio stations I could find on my dad’s boombox. I’d eagerly turn the dial on each of the different frequency bands and I loved not knowing what would end up spilling out of the speakers into my ears.

Radio Garden sparks a similar curiosity. Having evolved from a Google Chrome Experiment, it allows users to navigate a digital globe peppered with a huge number of radio stations. Simply select the green dots and you can start to listen to the available stations.

There’s such an eclectic selection covering a wide variety of music and interests, making it virtually impossible to get bored. One quick caveat for UK listeners: legal restrictions mean you’re limited to local streams.

3. Quick, Draw

This Pictionary-style game by Google Creative Labs feels a little quaint these days given the advances in AI but Quick, Draw is still great fun. The game was so popular that more than 15 million players have contributed drawings.

Built to aid machine learning, you play it using a mouse or your finger. It gives you a series of six words in each round and you simply draw the suggested objects within a 20-second timeframe.

As you get on with the task, a neural network follows your drawing pattern and tries to guess what you’re sketching. The aim is to help the AI succeed by producing something at least vaguely similar to the real-life item, and you can play as many times as you wish.

4. Cultural Crossword

Crossword puzzles are more than 100-years-old and many of us still can’t get enough of them. With Cultural Crossword, you can solve the clues and learn more about Google’s Arts & Culture diverse collections which span a host of subjects from science and technology, to big cats.

Simply click the grid to see the clues or tap Clues to see a full list of hints. When using the latter option, you can choose to explore the Google Arts & Culture website for more information and to discover the answer if you’re stuck.

5. Fabricius

I’ve long been fascinated by Ancient Egypt so this experiment certainly caught my eye. It allows you to learn more about Egyptian hieroglyphs and it’s named after Georg Fabricius, the father of epigraphy.

The first section introduces the fundamentals of hieroglyphs, but while it invites you to trace an example, it unfortunately throws up an offline error. Thankfully, the second section works like a charm.

It asks you to imagine hieroglyphs as the ancient Egyptian equivalent of emojis — you simply type in words or phrases, pick from suggested symbols, and get a loose translation to share.

If you want to dive deeper, a handy learn more link takes you to a Google Arts & Culture page featuring an interactive game, Return of the Cat Mummy, alongside a fascinating showcase of historical artifacts.