Domino is a game of chance and strategy, where players place domino tiles to form patterns and try to make the remaining pieces fall. When a piece falls, it creates potential energy that is transmitted to the next piece until all of the dominoes have fallen. The energy continues to flow from domino to domino until the whole arrangement collapses according to the laws of physics. The most common domino sets have 28 tiles, but there are many variants that add more or less tiles to the set. Dominoes can be arranged in straight lines, curved lines, grids that make pictures when they fall, stacked walls, and 3D structures such as towers or pyramids.
The first domino set was made with clay and wood, but since then dominoes have been produced in a variety of materials. The most popular are polymer resins, which have the advantage of being durable and relatively inexpensive. However, domino sets have also been made from bone, silver lip ocean pearl oyster shell (mother of pearl), ivory, a dark hardwood such as ebony, and other natural materials. The most interesting materials are often organic, such as marble, soapstone, and agate, and have more of a novel look than the traditional rectangular European sets.
There are many types of domino games, from simple blocking and scoring to a series of draw games that are adaptations of card games. Some of these adaptations were used in areas with religious proscriptions against the playing of cards. The most famous games are a variation of concentration and a number-matching game called twenty-one that can be played with a standard double-six set.
Some of the most interesting domino arrangements are created for special events, such as movie premieres or musical concerts. These are often constructed with hundreds of thousands of dominoes, and it can take several nail-biting minutes to watch them all fall. Hevesh, a professional domino artist, creates such amazing displays for a living. She has a YouTube channel with over 2 million subscribers, and she’s worked on projects for movies, television shows, and music artists.
Domino is also an important metaphor for how some learning challenges impact students. Just like the Domino effect, when a student begins to compensate for a weak foundational skill, that extra effort taxes their working memory capacity until it’s exhausted, and they are no longer able to learn. The impact of the weak foundational skill then cascades to the other skills they are trying to develop. The resulting “domino effect” can prevent the student from reaching their full potential. Luckily, teachers can help address this issue by identifying and remediating the weak foundational skills. By teaching the skills needed for success in a fun, engaging way, we can help students build the strong foundational skills that will allow them to overcome their learning challenge.