Many children enjoy playing with dominoes — toys that are stacked on end in long lines. When the first domino is tipped over, it triggers the next one in the line to tip and so on until all the dominoes are in a tumbled heap. This sequence is referred to as the domino effect, and when it happens on a large scale, the resulting chain reaction can be astoundingly beautiful and impressive.
Dominos, which are sometimes called bones, cards, men, or pieces, are normally twice as long as they are wide. The top and bottom of each domino feature a number of spots, or pips, ranging from six to none. A domino is also described as having a rank or weight, which refers to the sum of the values of all of its pips. A domino that has a greater number of pips is regarded as “heavier” than a domino with fewer pips.
When it comes to domino art, master builder Hevesh is unparalleled in her skill and ability to create mind-blowing displays. When she sets up her largest installations, it can take several nail-biting minutes for the entire series of dominoes to fall in a controlled fashion, as per the laws of gravity. Hevesh’s success is not only due to her talent but also the fact that she understands and demonstrates the principles behind each domino effect.
Hevesh is quick to point out that she uses science as her inspiration. She starts her work by considering the theme or purpose of a piece, then brainstorms images or words that she might want to include in the design. Next, she creates a draft model of the entire project and tests it for strength, stability, and alignment before beginning to lay individual tiles.
Throughout the process, Hevesh pays special attention to detail, ensuring that each tile is perfectly aligned with its neighbors and that it can connect with the base of any larger structures the setup may require. This process takes time and patience, but it’s what allows Hevesh to produce some of the most extraordinary domino artwork around.
The same principles that Hevesh applies to her domino art are what we at Domino Data Lab strive for when we help businesses transform their data into useful and actionable models. Centralization of code and data execution enables us to enforce access controls for different collaborators, quickly run multiple jobs across a variety of hardware, merge changes and detect conflicts, and serve results and diagnostics via web interfaces. It’s this type of Domino-powered approach that gives you a clear path between your model, the data it consumes, and the results that come out of running it. And, best of all, it’s all made possible by the power of the Domino database.