Friend-in-good-standing of The Aperiodical, Matt Parker, has something big planned for Manchester Science Festival and he needs your help.

Matt is trying to build a computer out of dominoes. He’s written a post about the project on his blog, but here’s the important information:

This is a project that I cannot do by myself. I’m going to need a big team of enthusiastic volunteers. I need people who are:

– Good at balancing a lot of dominoes and maybe good at organising other people who are balancing lots of dominoes
– Happy to talk to the general public and communicate maths to them
– Able to co-ordinate ridiculous projects and lead a team
– Masters of logic gates and able to refine a circuit design

You only need to be in one category to help out! We hope to have loads of helpers there on the actual weekend in Manchester (27 and 28 October 2012), fewer people along for the planning weekend (15 and 16 September) and then some people who are only involved online.

As a proof-of-concept, earlier in the year Matt made a domino AND gate. Here’s a video of it in action.

If this sounds like your idea of a fun weekend or two, send Matt an email at matt@standupmaths.com and stand by for further orders. On the other hand, if you just fancy seeing a load of dominoes doing some thinking, go to Manchester Science Festival on the 27th and 28th of October to see the finished computer in action.

More information: Domino Computer Challenge: HELP on Matt Parker’s blog

Event info: Domino Computer Challenge at Manchester Science Festival