The Dice Tower | 2D–3D Design J–Term

For my project, I decided to design and build a dice tower. A dice tower is used to ensure that the dice are rolled without any manipulation or sleight of hand. I am planning on using walnut and padauk (an orangey colored wood) as the materials for the tower, but the local store did not have the exact pieces and they will come in through Amazon later on this week. 

Dice Tower AI File

I have had previous experience with Adobe Illustrator, the laser cutter, and other tools that we have in La Tinkeria™ and this project was still difficult as there were many parts that needed to be exact and meet up in order to fit together. I will only have one shot when I use my final materials, so I want to be as precise as possible with my final version.

Laser Cut Time Lapse

I first went through designs of dice towers to gather inspiration and information on what I should incorporate into my own. I created cut out the enclosure for of the tower in order to see what placement of the ramps and at which angle they would work best, so that the dice would roll, fall to the bottom, as well as not get stuck inside. The final design of ramps has them being inserted at an angel which allows for the ramps to provide greater structural  support as well as simpler overall looking design. This method also allows for the side of the ramps to be seen as they are actually coming out of the sides, this was a decorative feature that I wanted and I am happy about how this was implemented.

Three Iterations of my Dice Tower

I went through multiple versions each time changing certain parts and proportions that needed to be tweaked. I also added some decorations so that the final version would not look like a simple box. I decided to utilize some scrap acrylic that Elliott had leftover as windows, as I did not want the colored ramps to go unnoticed. The inlaid acrylic circles also portray a nice clean design in, that is disrupted by the slants of the ramps. 

The (Probably) Final Test Design

I am still working on better friction fitting the ramps and walls as well need to design the outer box/tray that will hold the tower and keep the dice from shooting out. I look forward to the coming weeks and seeing how the final dice tower looks when the materials come in.