250,000 Dominoes and 3 World Records: Incredible Science Machine
I saw this amazing video on Facebook and just had to share it with you and do some digging to learn more.
They broke three world records:
- US Domino Field Record (12,450 dominoes)
- US Domino Structure Record (12,780 dominoes)
- US Domino Record (245,732 dominoes)
Prior to seeing this video, I didn't even know "domino art" was a thing. According to the video description, you can hire Steve Price & Lily Hevesh to do this stuff for you:
We organize and design custom domino projects for live events, commercials, and TV shows. Contact us at [email protected] and [email protected] for business inquiries or if you would like to sponsor our next event.
I think what I enjoyed most about this beyond the amazing art and patience required to pull it off was the nostolga of seeing so many games I've enjoyed both as a kid and an adult. My family and I are big boardgame fans, and I've done a number of Table Top Game Reviews which you can see here on Steemit:
In total, this domino build took 7 days with a total of 19 builders working a combined 1,200 hours (according to the YouTube video description).
Here are the builders and links to their YouTube channels (again, taken from the video description):
- Steve Price - Sprice Machines
- Lily Hevesh - Hevesh5
- Lyle Broughton - jackofallspades98
- Nathan Heck - SuperMarMarMan1
- Joel Yantha - TheInvention11
- Alex Huang - Flashdomino
- Mark Robbins - DoodleChaos
- Brady Dolan - BPDoles
- Chase Blanchette - TheRGMGuy01
- Hayden Russell - Dynamic Domino
- Evan Voeltner - E VoltageRGMs
- Marcel Pürrer - Austrian Domino Art
- Tim Dunsmore - DrComplicated
- Alexandra Benz - DominoERDMANN
- Michael Fantauzzo - StickTrickDominoDude
- Sascha Wilzewski - DominoFan0803
- Joseph Naberhaus - jdman1699
- Joel Dähler - Smileypeacefun
- Chris Wright - xXDominoMasterXx
If you enjoyed this build, be sure to let the sponsors know:
I was really stoked to see Smarter Every Day there as I'm a huge fan of their Edutainment, which I mentioned last year.
If you can't quite get enough of this build (I couldn't), check out the behind the scenes video:
I noticed they yell "Test!" whenever they test a part of the setup. I assume they do this so when people hear dominoes crashing, their hearts don't jump into their throats with anxiety thinking their work is crashing down. I was impressed with how slowly they placed each individual piece. They demonstrated some amazing patience.
The clock at the end doesn't run the whole time either (I figured that would be impossible!), but it does start running at 12 seconds and they nailed it perfectly, as you can see from the behind the scenes video.
As I watched these dominoes fall, I couldn't help but think about the time and effort involved in this. Part of my rational, engineer brain started to think, "What a waste of time!" but I quickly cut that thought off because this is art. Art, wonder, and beauty are things which make this human existence so amazing. I want humans working to solve climate change, improve the world, safely invent A.I., and travel to the stars, but I also have to appreciate how important it is to do things like this as well.
If we lose our wonder, we'll lose ourselves.
Wow! Maybe last year, maybe the year before I sucked into one of those "black holes" on YouTube and spent several hours watching domino art videos... and being amazed by the seemingly unlimited creativity people put into creating these amazing structures.
And yeah, there was also a sense of nostalgia there; thinking about actually playing dominoes with my elderly auntie.
I looked at this... and, in some strange sense, I thought to myself "this is our western version of the eastern mandala paintings done with sand... days to prepare, and then whisked away with the brush of a hand."
Impermanence...
Huh. I had never considered that comparison, but you're right, it's very similar.
What a testimony to the patience and resolve of the human spirit. Talk about tedious work. Thanks for the upload. I viewed about 5 minutes of the video and was memorized watching those dang plastic pieces fall. Why the heck is that SO dang gratifying?!?
I know, right! It's just incredible. I couldn't look away. Maybe something about our desire for order within chaos and the inevitability of it going back to chaos again. Entropy at work, or something.
Maybe we're waiting to see a failure, for something to go wrong. Or maybe it's based on how the pleasure centers of our brain enjoy having an expectation and then experiencing its fulfillment.
Either way, it's pretty dang cool.
245 732, that's a lot of dominos!
That was just amazing, I can't wait to show my sons. Master 6 loves lining things up and Master 4 loves to watch them come crashing down. Mr 9 will go nuts for the science and math involved in creating such a fantastic piece of domino art.
I see some domino creation days in my future. On a much smaller scale I hope.
Thanks for sharing.
Glad you enjoyed it! :)
Thanks for the fascinating post and sharing the video!
Hah! Thanks. That's my first Obama meme. :) I do give myself self-votes later on as I did work hard for my Steem Power, but usually I don't vote in the beginning to maximize curation rewards for others.
wowzer!! great job peoples..... :)
Awesome 👏🏼
Thanks.
amazing
I saw this just the other day on youtube
Their backs must be destroyed.
Great post.go ahead bro. best of luck.
All your comments look like spam. Can you give me a reason I shouldn't flag this as spam as well?