But the Ohio Department of Health and Dayton agency Real Art have found what just might be the most effective way of showing the danger when people continue to cluster together amid the outbreak of a highly contagious coronavirus.

“Space Makes Us Safer,” released across the health department’s social channels Thursday and amplified today by Governor Mike DeWine on his own accounts, uses a meticulously assembled set of mouse traps and pingpong balls to illustrate how a community can quickly be devastated by the chain reaction of an emerging virus.

Andy Nick, video team lead at Real Art, shared more details about the project on Twitter. In one behind-the-scenes video, he shows how the opening shot took eight hours to set up—but luckily was worth all the effort.

In response to some questions by the video’s many viewers over the past 24 hours, Nick also said that it was accomplished through practical effects. Initially, it was a factor of cost and timeline, though creating it by hand also gives the project a believability that CGI might have detracted from.

A similar visual has been used before, typically to illustrate chain reactions. It is believed to have first been used in Disney’s 1957 “Our Friend the Atom” episode of the show Walt Disney’s Wonderful World of Color.

Almost a decade ago, as part of the Harvard Natural Sciences Lecture Demonstrations series, a team used pingpong balls and mouse traps to help visualize a nuclear fission reaction:

“If ever you envied those daring bomb disposal guys, here’s a setup to test your nerve,” the Harvard team said in describing their project. You can read a detailed account of how they built the project here.