Penn Museum hosts giant domino demonstration

After 13 hours of painstaking positioning, the newly dubbed “Super Domino Brothers” unleashed their behemoth Rube Goldberg machine at the Penn Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology Sunday afternoon.

The large crowd that assembled at the “Travel the World with Games” event, following the Year of Games theme of the 2011-2012 academic year, ranged from toddlers to grandparents, each “ooh-ing” and “aah-ing” at the various intricate designs displayed within the Perrucci brothers’ creation — a chain of dominoes and other small objects. Mike Perrucci admitted he does it for “the end result,” which “looks neat” despite it being “back-breaking work.”

Both Mike and Steve Perrucci started toying with dominoes as children and as Steve said, “it got bigger and bigger” for them.

The creation of this machine utilized both hand-drawn designs, computer-generated schematics and required a considerable amount of time. Mike said their first session lasted a grueling eight hours. Steve concluded that he will continue this work “as long as the knees hold out.”

The end result was the highlight of Sunday’s event for audience members. The line of dominoes took roughly five minutes to collapse, ultimately pushing a giant die over. The dominoes spelled out words such as “Penn Museum” and helped move items like a tennis ball and chess piece while creating floral and image patterns.

Mike Dieva, a day visitor to the Museum, said it must take “far more patience than I would ever have” to construct the machine.

The Fashacht family, which discovered the event through Google, agreed it was amazing. Angelita Fashacht said, “Oh my god, it was awesome. So well played, so many little surprises.” Her husband Eric said it “must have been done by computer.”

Other viewers, such as Selmaan Chettih, a research technician at Penn, said it was “graceful and smooth.”

After the astonishing applause settled down, the group dispersed once again to the array of cultural and historical games within the museum. Ten-year-old Nate Abrahams from the Philadelphia suburbs admitted to his hour-long game of Mancala, a mathematical game involving marbles. Other games throughout the museum exhibits included chess, Yu-Gi-Oh, table-top fantasy games, the Ancient Egypt game of Sennet, backgammon, the Royal Game of Ur and even Penn Quidditch.

Found at a table laden with games, Redcap’s Corner game-store owner Benjamin Roe agreed games definitely make the world a better place. Roe concluded that “interactions are becoming colder and more distant. Games bring us together.”

Please note All comments are eligible for publication in The Daily Pennsylvanian.