The thirty-something woman and her young son rushed in front of me as I reached for the door to the Westland Shopping Mall entrance.
Do you know where the dominos are set up?
she hurriedly asked as she looked back at me.
No,
I replied. But I’ll see you there in a few minutes!
I shouldn’t have worried.
There was a beeline in one direction as groups of people quickly walked to the east side of the shopping mall.
What were we all there for?
To see almost 250,000 dominoes fall down!
What else would I be doing on a hot almost-95 degree summer afternoon in southeastern Michigan?
Especially when the lead organizer is from my home town of Canton, Michigan?
Incredible Science Machine
Led by 22-year-old Steve Price, Incredible Science Machine is a group of 18 chain reaction and dominoes experts from around the world who gathered together this month to build the world’s largest dominoes chain reaction.
Work began July 10 as the team set up dominoes in the shopping mall in Westland, a western suburb of Detroit, Michigan.
As part of the project, the team aimed to break the Guinness World Record for the largest domino circle field (around 70,000 dominoes).
In addition, the team was competing against themselves in their goal to beat their own 2015 record of most dominoes toppled in America.
Last year, the team toppled 197,598 dominoes at the Michigan Science Center in Detroit, Michigan.
This year’s goal? A few more: around ¼ of a million dominoes.
The Dominoes Fall!
Hundreds of people stood five to ten-deep as they waited to watch the intricate colorful dominoes tumble down.
And when it started, it was impressive!
I couldn’t always see the little movements, but managed to catch some of the bigger cascades of dominoes falling: the stadium, the collapse of towers, the chain reaction circle were amazing to watch!
Oohs and aahs grew from the crowd as smaller sets of dominoes falling down led to larger sets falling.
Loud applause and shouts were heard when the stadium came down and when the domino circle finally tumbled.
Kudos to the Team
The team incorporated all kinds of games, toys, and everyday objects into their project; it wasn’t only dominoes.
Balls would roll, an inflated globe moved, as they set in motion the process of dominoes tumbling across a 6,000 square foot chain reaction on the floor of the mall.
Think of your childhood games when a marble travels through a track, winding back and forth.
That’s the kind of fascinating game play we saw as dominoes tumbled down over 20 minutes.
And with their international theme, the project had different areas that represented Asia, Europe, North America, South America, Australia, and Antarctica.
The team hugged each other and shot high fives as they celebrated the last domino coming down.
Did They Make It?
I didn’t learn until later that to meet the Guinness World Record, the dominoes had to be counted after they fell down, in front of witnesses.
By late yesterday afternoon, a Facebook post announced the results:
Congrats to the team on all their hard work and efforts!
Shoutout to Sponsors
As someone who organizes events, I know this kind of production takes a number of sponsors to cover the costs and expenses of the complicated dominoes construction.
Shoutout to:
- Zeal Credit Union
- Bulk Dominoes
- Fairway Productions
- Smarter Every Day
- Trix Track
The official video will be posted within the week, and I’ll link or add it to this post (not sure what their permissions will be for embedding the video).
I can’t wait to see the dominoes fall again next year!
