I'm Lyle Broughton, and I am a professional chain reaction artist. I was the chain reaction expert on the winning team of FOX's "Domino Masters" alongside my teammates Derek & Alex from DaksDominoes.
Chain reaction art involves repurposing everyday household objects to create intricate tabletop mechanisms, complex physics tricks, and multi-use elements, all with an emphasis on being understandable, surprising, and even humorous to watch. Chain reaction machines are so much more than just a design challenge, they are an entire art form.
I am available for commissioned work, such as live events, commercials, or product placements. Contact me via e-mail at jackofallspades98@gmail.com if you have any questions.
Fire Spiral: whoosh Walking Gears: legit Five-Pointed Swivel: ka-chunk ka-chunk ka-chunk ka-chunk ka-chunk Spinning Track Launch: wow Magnet Magic 2: clever Flexing Tiles: oh no, our table! it’s split into four Bouncing Track: what a bop Movie Projector: click exemplary as always. was a pleasure watching the tenth episode of these masterpieces for the first time with you in-person 🎱
Just discovered your channel from this collab with Hevesh5, and your videos are amazing dude! I can't stop watching them, your machines are so creative and clever. Wish I knew about you years. ago!
hello bestie here is my yearly thesis 1:41 - Underrated concept! Spirals + centrifugal force is always a fun place to start, but the pathing is especially well thought out here - having a lil triangle formation of balls naturally translate into a straight line through curved paths, but those paths only forming due to the starting/stopping of the board shows a LOT of thought went into the presentation of this. Your choice to have the billiard balls staggered one by one is something that I appreciate visually here, but it also gives me a lot of insight into how you opt for not only elegant solutions, but reliable ones as well. This trick is also a perfect example of the level of PRECISION you put into your machines - like it's a perfectly centered circular board with meticulously mapped out paths and start/end ball positions, like brother I am sobbing 1:49 - Walking tricks are so sick not enough people do them!!!! (it's because they are hard and take effort to do and are also difficult) - the trick is beautiful, the effect really speaks for itself, but there's of course more intricacies I'd love to put into writing - For one, the timing connection system with the train is genius, I know you've done it before but it's just super smart to have adjustable components for timing-based connections, every time I see one I geek out. The second is that the actual module that holds those gears in place though is SO skillfully put together - I've talked a bunch about this in our video call already, but those micro gears acting as natural locks, the lil domino ramp, and the structural integrity achieved to allow a fucking METAL BALL to roll on it are so so impressive 1:56 - HEY LOOK IT'S A -WASHING MACHINE- _five-pointed track swivel_ - Yeah this is probs my favourite overall - the path sequence for the track is so elaborate but makes perfect sense once I pieced it together in my head, it's like you crafted it to have the absolute perfect amount of iterations + board rotation for viewer enjoyment - it's magnificent; the rotational symmetry, contrasting spinning components, completely invisible connections in spite of it having an elaborate and BRAND NEW motion for a trick, it is the literal version of everybody clapped 2:55 - Shoutout to the JoJ ball elevator - also yeah I can't shout my vocal chords enough how often you make tricks that no one else could ever pull off. Like I know this "technically" had a lot of fails, but considering the number of those where apparently the trick actually functioned - I guess I should re-emphasize - you have a genuinely magical ability to turn inherently risky and at times free-moving motions into elegant works of art, where you don't even QUESTION for a single second that it could potentially fail (or have ever failed) when you watch it - this is an absolute rarity in the machine community - I do not have this ability, no one has this. You have it and you pull it off with everything you make 3:03 - OH GOD I LOVE _'Chain Reactions with MAGNETS! (w/ TheInvention11)'_ - really clever concept - really fitting for R10 to revisit a concept from the first DvM as well! Definitely seems like it took you a few iterations to reach the final product from what you told me, but it was totally worth it, this is a flawless presentation of this idea - I find it particularly satisfying how the tracks slide back down after the magnet connection is gone. Still could have used an EXTRA LONG ARM for that hand though I need it to be visible in ALL previous screenlink clips pronto 3:58 - Brilliant. One of the hardest things about machine building is the process of actually iterating from an interesting unexplored motion to a trick. You might have some push back on this but I believe you are the absolute BEST at this. With every new trick you make, I can almost hear the collective OHHHHHHH's from everyone watching and coming to their own little understandings of the how's and what's and why's of the trick (what is ___, why does ___ exist, how does this ___ work) - each trick has a moment where questions are answered, things just click and connect into place, the stars align to the point where even someone with a limited understanding of machines can come to realize how machines can be meaningful to them - This trick is the essence of what makes chain reaction machines THE best artform in the world 4:14 - Brilliant. One of the hardest things about machine building is the process of act- no I'm kidding lol but yeah I have basically the same abstract things to say I've already touched upon for previous clips, so I'll just touch on a couple things specific to the trick - THE LEVEL OF CHAOS CONTROL to get BAL to stay in CUPP while BOUNCE is very quite high in fact some would even say it's high - The controlled range of motion in this in general is beyond anything I've seen before - track be straight up doing an expertly choreographed dance with all the loops and froots it does while maintaining a precise path and being a free-moving object - the limited amount of fails this had considering the track needs to only rotate along one axis is unbelievable, and is a testament to you being an absolute -domino- master of your craft 4:24 - Genuinely crazy that you got this to work as an actual projector IRL, and that curtain opening motion is so SMOOTH how do you DO that shit it straight up looks like it's animated - also that moment when a film is so scary the entire crowd looks backwards - but yeah solid video I'd probably give it like a -Dominoes vs. Machines: Round- X/10 also I'm so happy you're feeling so good in life now!!! even if you weren't my best friend, or didn't continue to mean so so much to me in and outside of my chain reaction journey, you would still deserve all of the happiness
I almost never write essay comments on videos any more, but I feel the obligation to for this video because HOLY WHAT DUDE THIS IS SO GOOD THIS WAS SO WORTH THE WAIT. This was absolutely brilliant; it might be my new favorite DvM video and I now feel the need to comment on every clip because I can’t help myself 1:40 This is just such a beautiful and smooth motion, very aesthetically pleasing too with the hot color scheme. 1:50 Again, so simple, yet so buttery smooth. Feels kinda like an upgraded version of the train trick from JOAS. 1:56 I genuinely have no clue how in the world you got this motion to happen but I love it. It’s chaotic and unexpected, but it still feels controlled. 2:56 You launched a track with a spinning launcher. And you used the momentum from said spinning launcher to make the track SPIN PERFECTLY IN MIDAIR TO FILL THE GAP IN THE THE TRACK PERFECTLY. WHAT. The fact that this isn’t even my favorite clip in this video just shows how insane this video is because this is still like a top 10 machine trick of all time 3:03 Genuinely such an ingenious idea for a trick and I don’t know how you even came up with it. I feel like this is one of the few instances of a machine trick that benefits from slow speed. Idk why but it makes it feel more impactful somehow, it really lets the brilliance sink in. 3:59 This caught me by surprise on my first watch. (I mean all of these did, but still) Conceptually it’s perfect, in execution it’s perfect, aesthetically it’s perfect, it is a perfect clip and I love it so much (again, you could say that about all of these) 4:14 With every single DvM, I always wonder how you’re going to outdo yourself next year. And somehow, no matter how good the previous video was, you always do. But I genuinely wonder if it’s even possible to outdo this because this legit might be the greatest, or at least one of the greatest, machine trick of this generation. You launched a track with a ball in cup attached. You bounced it OFF OF A TRAMPOLINE. WITH THE BALL STILL IN THE CUP. And naturally you got it to land in the PERFECT SPOT TO SWING AROUND AND LET THE BALL ROLL OUT. HOW. This is just too much for my brain to comprehend 4:24 Such a cute ending I love it ❤️ I think this is definitely your best set of clips yet, every clip feels unique and special in its own way. This video was certainly worth the extra wait and I admire your dedication to taking your time to make this the best video it could be. Absolutely phenomenal job! And considering that this marks the tenth DvM, I wanted to write a quick little sappy comment about the series. Dominoes vs. Machines has been such a special time for me every year. Every November 3rd I’ve found myself constantly refreshing my subscription page, waiting eagerly to find out who your opponent was and what crazy machine ideas you’d come up with. It’s genuinely wild that we’ve gotten to TEN installments (makes me feel kinda old honestly lol) and every year they just keep getting better. I don’t know how many more DvMs you plan to do, or if you even plan to do more, but either way, this series is one of my favorites in the world of chain reactions and I’m glad to see it get this far :) Also I’m frankly surprised that I haven’t seen more people mention this, but huge congratulations on the marriage! I’m honestly just so so happy for you man ❤️ Best of wishes to the two of you going forward!
This is such a big moment for the community, people have talked for a while about the possibility of a DvM episode with Lily, and it's amazing to see it finally happen. But on top of that, the video itself is absolutely amazing, Lily came up with a lot of highly creative ideas and each of her clips were designed with a level of skill and mastery that could only come from her, the two title clips were the best examples of this in my opinion. And for your clips, you've somehow outdone yourself once again as your clips ranged from being very clever to straight up jaw dropping. The flexing tiles and the magnet magic clips were such unique and interesting ideas, and the bouncing track and helicopter track tricks were genuinely two of the craziest machine tricks I've ever seen. Great work to both of you, thanks for making one of the best chain reaction videos of the year!
Gasped out loud, as usual. I'll agree with @cwdreactions - you were definitely more in touch with your whimsical side, but what really impresses me still is your ability to take a concept that might be neat (folding tiles, trampoline, spinning in midair) and execute it cleanly and professionally. They're not ideas other builders have shied away from, but you have a particular way of making it happen without too much fuss, too much visible mechanism, or too much sketchiness that I really love. You help the concepts shine by trimming away everything else. Your videos are always a treat.
No way, it’s finally here! I expected a ball to bounce, not the track haha, guess you learned a thing or two from Joseph about unexpected tricks. Really nice stuff
Thoroughly in love with the magnet trick and the flexing squares trick, also the trick with the trampoline is so silly and whimsical. You really pulled out your silly and whimsical toolkit for this one. And of course, all of Lily’s setups were beautiful to look at, before, during, and after they topple. Well done to you both!
I was just reminiscing about my domino and RGM era the other day, and seeing this in my notifications just made me so happy! It's a hard choice, but I think I have to vote for the machines this round. Lyle, the creative motions you achieve are just stunning, unlike any other chain reaction artist in the world.
Hi, how have you been doing? It's been a while! I have been such a huge fan of your videos and I understand that you are doing rock climbing more than chain reaction machines.
WHOA… this has to be the best round of d vs m yet! I’d have to give the win to you thou cos these machines are INSANE! my favourites we’re no doubt 1:49 , 3:03 and 4:14 My fav domino clip was definitely the one with the thumbs up 👍!
I’ve been wanting to leave a comment like this for a long time, and I think now is the right time. This August will mark ten years since I first found your channel. You had about 70 subscribers. You were still living in North Carolina. You were 15 and I was 11. I found your video called “The A to Zs of Rube Goldberg Machines”, which was your most recent video. The previous September I’d made a Rube Goldberg for popping a balloon for middle school, I decided I loved it and wanted to do it more, I got a room in the attic for it, and became aware of the online chain reaction community. I never made a RU-vid channel. I wanted to, but for some reason I never worked up the courage. Despite that, pretty much everything that happened in the community during the mid-to-late-10s or so, I was there for; TK4, all three ISMs, Hevesh5 showing her face for the first time and felt like she had "no idea how to talk to a camera" (so different from today!), DomiNews, the domino bucket and domino tower challenges, your basement flooding, Fail Factor (I think I got like…two points lol), Hevesh’s gap year in the big studio, the movie she built dominoes for, your continuous updates about the Bet Losing Machine on Twitter. I was even there for that phase everybody went through where people shifted from saying “Rube Goldberg” to “chain reaction”, and they somehow collectively decided to treat the former like a literal slur. Does anyone else remember that? Or was that just an elaborate hallucination I had? Lmao. I never ended up building much that was particularly spectacular, or that I truly regret not sharing with people. Probably the best thing I made was a 4.5k to 5k domino setup (that used almost all the dominoes I had) over about three months in 2017. That one was alright. But there wasn’t much outside of that, aside from a bunch of projects I started but lost the emotional energy to finish, and I had to pack up my stuff in 2020 due to not having enough time and needing to clear some space in the house. There was something about reading the description about you and Jan that was…kind of dizzying for me. Like it really hit just how many years it’s been. I went back and rewatched your A to Zs video and got that feeling again when I saw the camera you used to record videos with. Seriously, go back and take a look at it, it looks like some kind of lovechild between a parking garage security camera and a BlackBerry. Fast forward to today, I’m in college majoring in filmmaking, and you’re married. It feels strange to have enough Lifeyears(tm) behind me to be able to observe a massive gap between two different points, but that’s just a sign that things are moving forward. I think one of the reasons I was never able to get a chain reaction of actual note of the ground, aside from general incompetence when it came to fundamentals, was because I wasn’t really able to think in terms of what would have visual personality at its core. Almost any trick I tried to make back then was failed arbitrary smokescreen of overly complicated “please be impressed”. And over the last few years, your work has been placing more and more importance on aesthetic and actively denying complication for the sake of it. I, for example, would never have thought to build a trick like the Swirling Fire clip, never it never would have occurred to me at the time to take color into consideration- I mean, color doesn’t make a track get used twice for no reason so what’s the point! The point, buddy (talking to my past self here), is that aiming to impress and aiming to please and immerse and enlighten are two different things. When you create something with the sole goal of *impressing*, you are putting up a wall between your audience and what you create. If as they’re watching the main thing on their minds is, “wow the construction of this is so impressive,” they’re taking in the creation process, not the final work, which is what really matters. When that’s the main goal, you fail to give them something deeper. The Mountain Machine, for example, isn’t really complicated at all, but it offers something more nourishing: a sense of place, a sense of environment, a sense of atmosphere. It’s its own world to be explored. And going back to the Swirling Fire clip, it’s the heart of it, the heart of the colors, the heart of the central shape and its movement that takes center stage. To hear that you were falling deeply in love making this particular clip makes perfect sense. I could feel it. The same impulse I see in my failed chain reaction work is one I spot in so many films, especially modern films. There’s all these superficially “cool” camera angels and movements, sometimes the scene is all in One Take Bro, and I’m just sitting here thinking, “yeah but what’s at the heart of this? What does this really mean?” Your machines, which have gotten noticeably slower and more patient in pace overtime, directly pierce through any unnecessary clutter, and set clear-headed sights on *communication*, of the fundamental joy of finding new ways to do it. I hope to learn from my previous mistakes and hold true to the same philosophy in my films that you exercise in your machines. God-fucking-speed, Lyle.
Thanks for the kind words, this was a treat to read. I've seen your comments over the years, but it's nice to hear your story all written out like this. Those things you mentioned really take me back, damn! It means a lot that you've noticed my style shifting over the years, I've definitely noticed it too. I think your point about avoiding clutter and streamlining communication is what resonates the most, those are the things I've found myself thinking about and considering the most as I build clips now. Here's to many more years of machines, and I hope to keep seeing you around, I'm always happy to see your comments :)
Wow! This was so good, I think my favorite clips for the machines were the fire spiral, flexing tiles, AND OMG THE BOUNCING TRACK WAS INSANE. Well done!
LET'S GOOOOOO!!!! THE MACHINE LEGEND IS BACK WITH ANOTHER OUTSTANDING VIDEO!!!!! The Flexing tiles trick at 3:58 and the Trampoline bounce are my favorite (So satisfying🤤) The magnet magic 2.0 trick confused me the most! 😲Awesome job Jackofallspade98 and Hevesh5!
Aside from having literally the domino artist with the largest platform involved in this series, it was a massive pleasure watching this. Coming from a domino artist (and hence in no way a qualified opinion), your machine clips, even though I should expect the unexpected to happen, continue to be pleasant surprises all around - I thoroughly enjoy the sequence of events that unfold in the acrobatic-y clips (Five-pointed Track Swivel, Launching Helicopter Track, Trampoline Bounce). However, that’s not to take any credits away from clips like Magnet Magic, Walking Planetary Gears, or Flexing Tiles - the elegance in movements that aren’t meant (I presume) to be shocking adds its own quality to the final product. With clips from 2 different styles (shock-inducing acrobatics and elegant complexity as I like to call them), I enjoy the fact that these styles are balanced in a way that gives the viewer the best of both worlds while minimizing the fatigue coming from excess in either style. Overall, very amazing installment and well worth the delay. If there’s a DvM XI planned, I cannot wait :)
YOU GUYS ARE UNBELIEVABLE THIS IS ONE OF THE COOLEST VIDEOS I'VE EVER SEEN!!!!!!!!!!!! The creativiy for this was absolutely incredible and I loved everything this video had to offer! To go further in the machine side of this... Dude what the actual heck you're actually insane. I don't know how you come up with these tricks, let alone actually BUILD them, but your creativity and technical parts of this were absolutely insane! You're clips were just so cool to watch and I have definitely found myself watching some of my favorites, like the trampoline clip or the helicopter trick, or the MAGNETIC TRAIN TRICK (because that wasn't the coolest thing ever), over and over again! Absolutely incredible work!
good game, Lyle!! you always impress me with these insane track tricks and things that move into place at the last second! like 4:01 omg WHAT HOW?! anyways, it was an honor to collaborate with you on this series for Round X! I'm really glad to see you still building and making chain reactions!
Holy crap that was good! I didn't even realize that it is the same blue ball all the way from left to right. What a journey! There may have been marshmallows, but it was all good tricks, no fluff!
