A domino is a small wooden or plastic block with a printed surface divided into halves, each featuring either blank space or numbers in the form of dots resembling dice. The word dominoes is also used as an adjective to refer to games played using such blocks; domino is commonly used as verb. Although they appear small, dominoes exert considerable force when coming into contact with each other; an expertly made domino set can create intricate patterns which require careful manipulation in order to produce desired effects and prevent mistakes and errors from arising.

Dominoes are a beloved pastime among children and adults alike, providing an entertaining way to stimulate and challenge the brain. Setting up a domino track and watching its pieces fall is similar to experiencing nature’s chain reactions like fireworks or earthquakes; setting one up is just like starting something off in action!

Fireworks displays or earthquakes often have sudden, dramatic causes; when setting up a domino track, its effect can be more subtle. The initial domino acts as a trigger that sets in motion a series of events leading up to its conclusion; similarly, positive decisions made can have ripple effects that positively impact many others as well as things.

An artist creating domino art typically utilizes an engineering-design process in order to plan out their track before beginning construction. To start out, they should consider the theme of their piece and brainstorm images or words which might fit within it as part of an installation before calculating how many dominoes will make up the track and arrange them into designs as simple or elaborate as desired.

Simple domino layouts may feature one long line of rectangles with different colored borders, while more complex designs could consist of circles connected by straight lines. Other possible designs can include grids that create pictures when the dominoes fall, stacked walls or 3D structures such as towers or pyramids.

Dominoes can be used for a wide variety of games, two main ones being blocking and scoring games. Blocking involves players placing dominoes edge-to-edge against one another so that adjacent faces match either exactly (e.g. 5 to 5) or form some total, such as nine. Each domino has a number of pips that identify its suit; most common commercial sets contain 28 tiles.

Scoring games require players to arrange dominoes so that each end is divisible by five or three; whenever this occurs, scoring games award a point for that end of the domino.