The Domino Effect (Literally)

Around November each year, there is an event in Leeuwarden, Netherlands known as Domino Day. Organized by Endemol, groups of domino builders collectively attempt to break the previous year's world record. In the last Domino Day, there were 89 builders from 14 different countries whom spent 8 weeks stacking dominoes in a bid to create a record.

Although there were portions of the dominoes that never fell or fell too early, overall the event was successful in shattering the previous year's world record by around 150,000. A colossal total of 4,800,000 dominoes were placed with 4,491,863 of those dominoes successfully falling during Domino Day 2009.

The bird's eye view of the entire floor plan of dominoes during Domino Day. The amount of spaced required to host this gigantic project reached up to 9,500 square meters. Equipment was used to host builders to the center for fixes and finishing touches that could not be reached normally without disturbing the outer domino pieces.

The 89 participants created popular icons of the 7 continents on Earth using some 300 varying color combinations. Patience and steady hands are a significant requirement to minimize accidents that may set off thousands of dominoes. Approximately 5,700 square meters of the floor was painted for this occasion.

The Domino Day partakers were from Slovakia, Hungary, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, The Netherlands, Bulgaria, Austria, Czech Republic, Greece, Germany, Croatia, Switzerland.
I thought I had already seen some pretty cool dominoes creations but this is dominoes on steriods given the sheer amount of dominoes along with the diverse designs. Unfortunately there might not be an event this year due to the weak economic climate so current plans are most likely aimed for an event in 2011.

World Biggest Donut?

Although this is not exactly a single whole donut, this is considered to be the biggest donut by its combined sheer mass of 3.5 tons. This beautiful sugary treat would cause Homer Simpson himself to go into a diabetic drooling frenzy by look alone. The majority of the weight were from the astonishing 90,000 donuts. This sweet monstrosity was created in Sydney, Australia to promote the release of The Simpsons Movie on dvd.

The overall formation measured 6 meters across.

Donut King, the creator of this donut conglomeration, is basically the Australian version of Dunkin Donuts. They tasked a total of 65 employees to the production of this tasty project.

The amount of pink icing used equaled to about 453 kilograms.

Around 30 kilograms of sprinkles were applied.

This would not be complete without the Simpson family being there. Although one might expect Bart to completely wreck the creation.

Some minor reparations being done. After the event, none of the resources were wasted. A total of 10,000 donuts went to Oz Harvest, an organization that feeds the needy. The rest of the donuts went to a company that generates electricity from the methane of decomposing food.

Using a fake bird of prey is a very interesting tactic to keep seagulls and pigeons away from the collection of donuts. This creative strategy seems to be very effective judging by the results. (Images via news.com.au)

Chocolate Architecture!

This chocolaty architectural creation went into the Guinness Book of World Records for being the tallest chocolate sculpture at 20 feet 8 inches or roughly 6.3 meters. French chef Alain Roby, the creator of this delicious skyscraper, mentioned the building consist of designs from the Empire State Building, Rockefeller Center and the Chrysler Building. The entire building weighs a staggering 1036 kilograms which is around 2285 pounds of dark and white chocolate.



This world record piece was located in New York's famous FAO Schwarz toy store. In the video, the crew really struggled to lift the weighty chocolate building blocks. The incredible weight is evident to the point where the chef himself appeared to be sweating heavily from the strenuous effort required. I wonder how this massive chocolate structure was handled afterward when it started melting.

Alain Roby himself is a senior executive pastry chef of the Chicago based firm, Hyatt Regency.

Card Architecture!

Bryan Berg, who is an architect, created this amazing Guinness World Record out of 218,792 cards or 4051 decks. There was no glue or tape used throughout the 44 days it took to produce this spectacle. This must require incredible patience and breathing control seeing how this took 44 days to complete and still looks as fragile as ever. Who wants to play pick up the 218,792 cards?

This was a scale model of The Venetian Macao, a hotel and casino resort. The real structures based in Macau are seen below.