Domino, also dominoes, is a game of matching pieces and placing them down in lines or angular structures. In addition to being a fun family activity, it’s also an excellent way for children to learn about geometry and basic number recognition.
A domino is a small, flat thumb-sized rectangular block that’s divided down the middle and bears from one to six dots or pips on each side. A set contains 28 such pieces. Dominoes can be used to play several games, involving scoring points by lining them up end to end with their exposed ends touching (the two adjacent ends must match; for example, one’s touch two’s) and counting the pips on both sides of the pieces.
The most popular and well-known game is the simple one where players set up a row of dominoes, then knock over all the ones on the left. The first player to do so wins.
Some domino artists make their creations on a much grander scale, using straight or curved lines, grids that form pictures when they fall, and 3D structures like towers and pyramids. The process to build such intricate arrangements is akin to an engineering project. To create a domino art, you’ll need to draw a plan for the layout on paper with arrows showing the way you would like the pieces to fall. Then you’ll need to figure out how many pieces are needed for your design and calculate the total length of the tracks.
Hevesh, who has more than 2 million subscribers to her YouTube channel, works on a number of large-scale projects. For example, her largest installation involved 300,000 dominoes and took several nail-biting minutes to fall. But she isn’t just a master of the physics of how things work; she knows the psychological forces at play as well.
She explains that when we commit to something, even in a tiny way, it helps us feel committed and consistent with our own self-image. This “domino effect,” as it’s known, is a key element of persuasive communication and was popularized in the classic book on persuasion by Robert Cialdini.
When Hevesh starts a new project, she considers the theme and purpose before brainstorming images that could be used to help convey her message. Once she’s decided on a design, she makes test versions of the individual sections to see how they work. After a few iterations, she’s ready to add the bigger 3-D sections that will connect her whole arrangement.
In a story, a domino effect can be a metaphor for the way a series of scenes logically build up toward a big climax. If one scene doesn’t have enough logical impact on the next, readers will get confused and may lose interest in the narrative. The way to prevent this is to ensure that each scene in your story contributes to the larger arc of the narrative. This is why it’s important to use plotting tools like outlines or Scrivener to plan out your story before writing it.