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The Butterfly Domino Effect

See your dominos fall again and again
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Our newest game is an arbitrary size grid of domino or similarly suitable tiles.

Mounted on the grid on electrically controlled springs, these multi-colored tiles can select a design of the creator's choosing via computer -- with the "irrelevant pieces" staying safely down as part of the platform.

Press a button, and the dominos begin their relentless cascade. Press another, and they stop, and spring back. Or wipe the slate clean and enter another design.

theircompetitor, Jan 04 2005

I did a clock like this, of course. Block_20Clock
[FarmerJohn, Jan 04 2005]

Domino Rally http://www.pressman...ct_dominorally.html
See the pivot-track thing for a means of easy domino setup. [zen_tom, Jan 04 2005]

[link]






       I always got frustrated as a kid when I set up elablorate domino designs and had then all fall down before I finished, wasting hours of work. Maybe this would remedy that! But then the computer part kind of takes away the fun of putting up all the dominos by hand. What we need is sticky dominos that stick to the surface and so don't fall over, and then you say "abracadabra!" and they are not sticky anoymore and can fall over!
Kenry52, Jan 04 2005
  

       Kenry52 I'm with you on that, the grid and computer interface is no substitution for setting up a real-life physical chain reaction with nothing but a pile of blocks, a spot of imagination and some eye-hand coordination.   

       Electro-magnetic dominoes with a shifting centre of gravity that leap to an upright position in one mode, but become topple-ready in another might allow for easy set up, without the catastrophic knee-in-bend-A syndrome. A flick of the switch, and the dominoes become 'armed'.
zen_tom, Jan 04 2005
  

       Seems like you might as well do the whole thing on the computer - a sort of "Sim-Dominoes" in which you can set up any domino pattern you want and see the lines of dominoes collapse from whatever viewpoint you choose. You could even have dominoes which explode, shatter or burst into flames when they fall.
hippo, Jan 04 2005
  

       there ment to fall the only time you play with dominoes relly is when theres nothing else to do and you want to wast time it would go so fast if you used a computer that you would get bored with it sooner
redwheel, Jan 04 2005
  

       there ment to fall the only time you play with dominoes relly is when theres nothing else to do and you want to wast time it would go so fast if you used a computer that you would get bored with it sooner
redwheel, Jan 04 2005
  

       So there.   

       So there.   

       I don't think that I precluded manual setting -- simply allowed for automated resetting
theircompetitor, Jan 04 2005
  

       As a kid *I* learned the value of insurance - i left out every 20th or so domino as I was building it, so that if I goofed at least it wouldn't destroy the whole line.
phundug, Jan 04 2005
  

       So there!.
gnomethang, Jan 04 2005
  

       Where are you going to put the wires?
Bull Winkus, Jan 04 2005
  

       I see there is such a thing as a domino Effect. This is not a domino Affect on people, although bad government, bad business and bad social values try and convince me otherwise.
mensmaximus, Jan 04 2005
  

       Domino Rally always looked exciting in the adverts, I never had the pleasure.   

       I like the matrix idea (Domino Rally has tracks that this might be implemented with), but there needs to be a rotational element for it to be as satisfying as proper dominoes - Quite how you get a free-rotating matrix controllable remotely is a tricky question.
zen_tom, Jan 04 2005
  

       I like [zen_tom]'s electro-magnet mechanism.
Acme, Apr 13 2006
  

       Where does the Butterfly come into this?
jhomrighaus, Apr 13 2006
  
      
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