At-Home STEM Activities: Domino Computer

Apr 6

Computers work by adding binary numbers using circuits of logic gates. In this module, learn about some of the most common types of logic gates, and model them by building circuits out of dominoes. A huge network of dominoes is able to add numbers together in the same way a computer processor would!

In 2012, a team from Think Maths built a huge domino computer for the Manchester (U.K.) Science Festival. The final version of their circuit used 10,000 dominoes, took twelve people six hours to set up, and was able to add two four-digit binary numbers and automatically give the five-digit binary sum. Watch it in action here:

logic gatescomputationcircuitsbinaryBoolean logicproblem solvingSTEMmathengineeringcomputer designcomputer programmingdiymodeling

Michael Conway

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