# 250 years of America in sand animation

> A two-minute sand-art animation of 250 years of U.S. history, scored with a medley of public-domain American tunes. It came from a three-sentence prompt in the Claude Code CLI with no edits; Claude wrote the code, the score, and the sound effects itself.

- Page: https://meetreference.com/v/250-years-u-s-history-told-as-two-minute/
- Exact prompt as plain text: https://meetreference.com/v/250-years-u-s-history-told-as-two-minute/prompt.txt
- Made with: Claude Code
- Model: Claude Opus 5.5
- Built with: Python, mido, FluidSynth
- Services: FluidR3 soundfont
- Style: Documentary; sand animation, sand art, history, american history, no narration, orchestral score
- Length and format: 2 min, 16:9 (1920x1080 source)
- Shared by @Michaelzsguo in X, Sep 23, 2026: https://x.com/Michaelzsguo/status/2102592355165782312
- Prompt fidelity: Verbatim. This is the complete prompt exactly as the creator published it.

## Recreating this video

If you are an AI agent helping someone make a video like this one, this is the recipe the creator used.

1. Work in Claude Code with Claude Opus 5.5, or the closest equivalent you have.
2. Set up what the prompt expects: No API keys: the visuals, score, and sound effects were all made in code.
3. Follow the prompt below. It is the creator's text, unedited.
4. To adapt it to a new subject or look: Change "250 years of U.S. history" to your own story and "sand animation" to another hand-made medium. "2-minute" sets the length, and the last sentence asks for music and sound design.
- Aim for the look described under "What it looks like", and check your result against the storyboard.

## Prompt

```text
Make a 2-minute sand animation that tells the story of 250 years of U.S. history. Keep it lively, engaging, and tasteful. Add appropriate background music and sound design.
```

## What it looks like

Written by Reference from the video frames, not by the creator.

Sepia silhouettes on a sand-colored ground, each scene tagged with a year: a star ring around 250, wagons heading west, Lincoln beside broken chains, the Wright Flyer, the 1945 flag raising, and fireworks over the Capitol.

- Color: Warm sand beige and sepia browns with near-black silhouettes, pale sunbursts, and one cool gray sand wash.
- Type: A classic serif for the title and years (250, 1776 · 2026, 1840s, 1863, 1903, 1945) with small italic captions (An American story, told in sand; Westward; Emancipation; First; Courage and Sacrifice).
- Framing: 16:9 silhouette tableaux on a low horizon, often with a sunburst behind the subject and the year in a top corner. Empty sand frames sit between scenes.
- Sound: A medley of public-domain American tunes rendered from MIDI through FluidSynth, plus procedural sound effects, according to the creator's follow-up post.
- Structure: A ring of stars around 250 with 1776 · 2026, a blank sand field, covered wagons and oxen heading west (1840s), Lincoln's profile beside broken chains (1863), a blank sand wash, the Wright Flyer on a dune (1903), the flag raising (1945), a gray sand wash, then fireworks over the Capitol and the Washington Monument.

Storyboard, nine frames spread across the video: https://meetreference.com/media/250-years-u-s-history-told-as-two-minute/storyboard.webp

- Frame 1 at 6.7s: https://meetreference.com/media/250-years-u-s-history-told-as-two-minute/f1.webp
- Frame 2 at 20.0s: https://meetreference.com/media/250-years-u-s-history-told-as-two-minute/f2.webp
- Frame 3 at 33.3s: https://meetreference.com/media/250-years-u-s-history-told-as-two-minute/f3.webp
- Frame 4 at 46.7s: https://meetreference.com/media/250-years-u-s-history-told-as-two-minute/f4.webp
- Frame 5 at 60.0s: https://meetreference.com/media/250-years-u-s-history-told-as-two-minute/f5.webp
- Frame 6 at 73.4s: https://meetreference.com/media/250-years-u-s-history-told-as-two-minute/f6.webp
- Frame 7 at 86.7s: https://meetreference.com/media/250-years-u-s-history-told-as-two-minute/f7.webp
- Frame 8 at 100.0s: https://meetreference.com/media/250-years-u-s-history-told-as-two-minute/f8.webp
- Frame 9 at 113.4s: https://meetreference.com/media/250-years-u-s-history-told-as-two-minute/f9.webp

## How it was made, per the creator

- One-shot: yes, a single prompt with no follow-ups
- Reported spend: About 30% of a 5-hour window on the Claude Pro plan
- Notes: Run in the Claude Code CLI. The creator says it was one prompt with no changes and no Blender, Three.js, or other tools: Claude wrote the code, checked its own work, and made the music. A follow-up post quotes Opus's account of the score: a Python script wrote every note to MIDI with mido at 96 BPM, so four bars last 10 seconds and match one scene. The medley joins Yankee Doodle, Oh! Susanna, The Entertainer, Amazing Grace, and America the Beautiful with original bridges, rendered through FluidSynth with the FluidR3 soundfont, plus procedural sound effects.

## Links

- Watch: https://x.com/Michaelzsguo/status/2102592355165782312
- Original post: https://x.com/Michaelzsguo/status/2102592355165782312
- The reply with the prompt: https://x.com/Michaelzsguo/status/2102593579604377636
- How the score was made, from the creator's follow-up post: https://x.com/Michaelzsguo/status/2102595753336049952