Dominoes were designed as a game to be played on a flat surface, but most children simply line them up and knock them down. It turns out the same thing goes for adults, as legions of Dominoes fans create incredibly sophisticated (and temporary) works of art by knocking them down.

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Domino day is an annual team event where groups from around the world come together to achieve the simple goal of knocking over the most Dominos, in ways that are entertaining and incredibly well choreographed.

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Dominoes are a surprisingly popular cultural icon, and can be found throughout the world. They are popular enough that various artists have made gigantic sculptures to celebrate them.

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While the more complicated designs in dominoes are best left to the artistic skills of a person, nothing beats a homebrewed robot for fast and consistent domino laying. Robots are the way to go if  you want to put down a lot of dominoes in a short period of time, or if you simply want to flex your engineering muscles.

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There are two major risks when putting together a hugely complicated dominoes setup: One wrong move and they all fall down, or the very anti climactic ending where too much space is left between two pieces, and one fails to hit the other and continue the chain. Consistency is key to make sure the two lines of dominoes keep up with each other.

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Domino portraits are created with the aid of a simple computer program that helps the artist align the dominoes in the correct order. While it’s a bit disappointing to learn that these works of art are not put together by an artistic prodigy (more like paint by numbers), the end result is still interesting and beautiful.

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If one wants to break a world record that’s truly just a lot of fun, it’s hard to beat the record for most people on mattresses being knocked down. Not quite dominoes, but it’s in the same spirit.

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More than 10,000 people joined together in Northern China to break the world record for the largest human domino chain. While the number of people involved is exciting, the actual falling is not, as people simply lay down one after another and wait until the entire sequence is complete.