Domino is a game of skill and chance that has a lot to teach us about the world around us. As you play the game, it’s fun to watch the chain reaction of one small domino impacting the next in a way that creates an effect bigger than its parts. This idea is also a great metaphor for many aspects of life. Whether we’re talking about writing or teaching, the impact of one task on the rest of our work is often similar to the domino effect.

For example, when students do a poor job in class, it can quickly spiral out of control and negatively affect the rest of the day. For students, it’s important to think about the effects of their actions and decisions before they make them. Whether you’re writing off the cuff or plotting a novel, taking the time to consider how each action will impact the rest of the story is key to creating a compelling story.

The most common use of domino is in positional games, where players place a single piece edge to edge against another in such a way that the adjacent faces bear identical markings (either an arrangement of dots like those on a die or the number of some specified total). In these types of games, each domino has a specific identity-bearing face that is marked with an arrangement of pips or numbers and a blank or identically patterned opposite side. The other face of the domino is marked with a line or ridge that separates the two sides of the domino.

Hevesh, who has more than 2 million YouTube subscribers, is a professional domino artist who creates mind-blowing domino setups for movies, TV shows, and events (including an album launch for Katy Perry). She follows a version of the engineering-design process when she creates her installations. First, she considers the theme or purpose of the domino display. Then she brainstorms images or words that might help convey the desired message or feeling. Finally, she begins to build the dominoes, starting with a base that supports the structure and adding more pieces as the design evolves.

When Hevesh completes her domino setups, she lets them fall according to the laws of physics. Each domino has the potential to knock down other dominoes in the same row or column, but it takes some energy to cause that to happen. As each domino falls, the energy it contains converts from potential energy to kinetic energy and then transmits some of that energy to the next domino in the chain, providing enough push for it to knock over as well. The effect continues until the last domino has fallen.