A flat, thumb-sized rectangular tile bearing an arrangement of spots or pips on one face and blank on the other; 28 such dominoes form a complete set. Dominoes are cousins of playing cards and, like them, allow a wide variety of games to be played. They are also a useful teaching tool for learning number recognition and basic addition and subtraction.
Lily Hevesh’s grandparents gave her a traditional 28-piece domino set when she was 9 years old. She loved the game of setting up a straight or curved line, flicking the first domino, and watching the entire sequence fall in unison. Now, at 20, Hevesh has turned her passion into a career as a domino artist. Her YouTube channel features videos of her mind-blowing domino setups. Her creations include tracks, 3-D structures, and large, curved lines. She follows a version of the engineering-design process to make sure each section works individually before she puts them all together.
Each domino has the potential energy to knock over a target when pushed on its edge. As the first domino falls, its potential energy converts to kinetic energy, which is transferred to the next domino in the chain as it pushes against it. This energy travels down the row until it reaches the last domino, which has enough kinetic energy to knock over the target. The result is a cascade of dominoes that can continue indefinitely, adding up to an impressive display.
Whether it’s a chess board, a roomful of stacked boxes, or a giant pyramid, domino art can be as simple or elaborate as you want it to be. The most important thing is to plan your design carefully and calculate how many dominoes you’ll need to achieve the effect you want. Then build a prototype and test it to make sure everything is working as intended.
Domino’s is a classic example of a brand that knows what it wants and executes on a strategy to get there. When the company was founded, founder Patrick Monaghan put three dots on the Domino’s logo to represent his three restaurants and planned to add a dot for each new location. Since then, Domino’s has grown to 25,000 locations worldwide and is the largest pizza delivery company in the world.
The Domino’s brand is based on its core competencies—delivering pizza and other food items quickly and conveniently, with high quality ingredients, at a low cost. The company has also embraced change and innovation in the way it operates. It is constantly adjusting its supply chains, improving its technology, and innovating on its business model to stay ahead of the competition. In a world of fast-changing consumer behavior, domino’s has made it to the top because it knows what its consumers want and is willing to deliver on that. The same principles that have made Domino’s the dominant player in its industry apply to other brands as well.