In 2001, computer animator Wayne Lytle created “Pipe Dream,” a 3D music visualization in which falling balls trigger musical notes on vibraphones, tubular bells, bongos, and other instruments:

Entertainingly, in 2006 an email hoax claimed that the scene was not animated but real:

Amazingly, 97% of the machines components came from John Deere Industries and Irrigation Equipment of Bancroft Iowa, yes farm equipment!

It took the team a combined 13,029 hours of set-up, alignment, Calibration, and tuning before filming this video but as you can see it was WELL worth the effort.

The hoax was entertaining because it was preposterous — who could build such a thing in real life?

You can guess where this is going — in 2011 Intel created a real version in which 2300 paintballs trigger 120 unique notes on replicas of Lytle’s animated instruments:

That’s just 10 years after Lytle made the original animation.

(Thanks, Jacob.)