I do not have a favorite board game, but I thought maybe it would be cool to roll dice in a unique way. Hence, I decided to design the dice tower BIRDICE, drawing inspiration from birdhouses to roll the dice for my next board game, or perhaps for the game I recently discovered, Wingspan. The dice would go through the hole in the front of the tower and roll down to the tray at the base of the tower.
BIRDICE Tower
The CAD view of the dice tower in Solidworks.
The dice tower was designed using SolidWorks. Parametric modeling and an equation file were used to make dimension adjustments easier. All parts of the tower were laser cut from 1/4” MDF, with tabs and slots that connect together without the need for glue or fasteners
The CAD view of the side and slants of the dice tower.
To make the design more secure, I implemented a different joint system for the base and the four sides compared to the regular finger joints. The base fits into the slots on the four sides and is positioned 0.2” above the ground.
Additionally, I included two slanted pieces at the top of the tower and a ramp at the bottom to allow the dice to roll down gradually.
The parts were then laser cut after accounting for the kerf and adjusting the dimensions.
The sanded edges can be seen at the bottom tabs.
During the laser cutting process, I noticed that the laser did not fully cut through certain parts. Therefore, I had to manually break off some of the material by hand, which led to slightly larger dimensions for some tabs and slots than originally designed. Assembling those pieces was very difficult, and it was not possible to get them to fit together. To fix this problem, I decided to sand the edges of a few parts so they could still fit together without having to cut new parts.
The assembled and finished dice tower BIRDICE.
The assembled dice tower with the sanded edges worked well. The parts fit together securely, and it is now ready to roll some dice through the hole!