The impractical project presented the working principle of the computer in a concrete way.
To Finland a new world record was set in January, when high school students from Helsinki managed to build a disposable calculator from more than 10,000 dominoes.
The machine was able to add 6-bit integers and correctly calculated the sum 19 + 59 = 78. The same calculation in binary numbers is 111011 + 10011 = 1001110.
The unofficial world record beat the previous world record set by a 5-bit calculator in Oman in 2018.
Brick computer designed and implemented by the second-year high school students of Maunula co-educational school and Helsinki mathematics high school Aapo Lemettinen, Vladimir Osmekhin and Georgijs Markovs.
Vladimir Osmekhin (left), Georgijs Markovs and Aapo Lemettinen designed the calculator. Vlad Patrascu (right) was the second director.
Third-year high school students act as instructors Vlad Patrescu and line leader of Maunula co-educational school and Helsinki mathematics high school, mathematics and physics lecturer Ville Tilvis.
“A calculator built from domino blocks is certainly a clumsy and impractical project, but it presents the working principle of a computer in a concrete way,” says Tilvis.
According to the teacher, building the calculator required quite a bit of planning. Dominoes do not behave like electricity.
“The most challenging thing was to time the signals, i.e. domino chains, to fall at the same time or with only a small difference. That's why long, winding chains had to be built from dominoes,” says Tilvis.
Project was schoolwork. The research course, which started last fall, is part of the mathematics high school curriculum. It took about eight hours to build the domino calculator itself.
The school work presented the working principle of the computer in a concrete way.
The machine was built at the mathematics night student event. Twenty current and former students of the school participated in its construction.
“Construction was challenging, because the queues accidentally collapsed quite a few times,” says Tilvis.
The world record itself was set right after the machine was completed in the morning. Everything went as planned.
“Surprisingly, everything worked right away on the first try.”
The machine According to Tilvis, the most difficult calculations were chosen for calculation. The calculator could calculate any 6-bit addition, but only one of them was executed. At the event, the audience could vote on which bills were made. The event was streamed live on YouTube.
Tilvis explains that the working principle of the calculator is the same as that of a computer.
In rows of dominoes, upright tiles correspond to zeros and fallen tiles correspond to ones. As the line passes, the answer is read from the other end.
On the same principle, the logic gates of the computer allow electric current to pass through.
Twenty former and current students of Helsinki Mathematics High School participated in the construction of the domino calculator.
With students there is already a new, even more ambitious plan for a block machine that would have a “clock signal” to make it easier to use.
Next to the rows of dominoes, there would be one row as a bell, which would act as a trigger for the next row. That would get rid of the problem of precise timing and the machine could calculate more complex calculations, Tilvis explains.
“Students find it significantly more fun to do something concrete and far-reaching than to study things from books.”
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