Domino is a classic game that requires careful thought and planning, as well as a keen eye to spot advantageous opportunities. The name itself—derived from the Latin dominus, meaning “lord” or “master”—assures that the domino-wielder is always thinking two moves ahead.
Dominos are a great way to learn basic geometry and physics, as each one is governed by the same laws of gravity. As each tile falls, it pushes on the next one, and that creates a chain reaction that continues until all the tiles are down. The same principles apply to any kind of sequence: in a story, for example, each scene could be a domino that influences the next.
A domino is a tile with an arrangement of spots, or “pips,” on one side and blank or identically patterned on the other. The pips on a domino are inlaid or painted, and the set is usually distinguished by the material used for the pieces: ivory, silver lip ocean pearl oyster shell (mother of pearl), bone, or ebony. Modern sets are also made from woods such as maple, mahogany, or birch; metals such as brass or pewter; and even ceramic clay.
As a piece of gaming equipment, dominoes are fairly common, although some of the rules for games can vary significantly. Generally, a player begins the game by drawing his or her own tiles and placing them on the table, ideally in an order that will allow the player to play as many tiles as possible. Then the player either “knocks” or raps the table, passing play to the other players. Normally the play stops when a single player cannot continue, and the winners are the partners whose combined total of remaining pips is lowest. In some games, doubles count as one or two (e.g., a 6-6 counts as six), and some consider them to count as zero.
Hevesh’s mind-blowing creations are a testament to the power of physics. When she begins to lay out her setup, she follows a version of the engineering-design process, starting with considering the theme or purpose of the installation and brainstorming images and words that might be associated with it.
In her approach to work, Doyle adheres to Domino’s core values, which include listening to employees and championing them. When the company was struggling, for instance, she listened closely to employee feedback and put into place changes that improved morale and productivity.
Domino’s centralization of code execution and data storage makes it easy to scale, as it can enforce access controls for different collaborators, merge and detect conflicts, and automatically schedule recurring tasks. In addition, Domino allows you to expose models as REST API endpoints for automated consumption by business processes, or build lightweight self-service web forms on top of your model, allowing direct human consumers to run it with their own parameter values without bothering the developer. In the case of a modeling project, this can speed up development cycles.