Haida dice

The other day our math department head asked if woodworking could produce a set of Haida dice. These are small dice-like objects with one curved face used in games of chance. Landing on different faces scores different points; the size of each face dictates how many points the player receives.

Typically they are made of wood, perhaps a 1"x2" run against a round drum sander. However, since a class set was needed I suggested fabricating them on the 3D printers. We quickly mocked up a prototype in Tinkercad by simply using a stretched cube with a cylinder hole for the curved face. What made the production interesting was how much infill: a typical infill of 10%-25% would make it too light. We tried 50% and 100% and tested how well they landed and bounced. 50% was the winner!

We also discovered that in Tinkercad the cylinder shape has a small default "faces" setting. ie a cylinder is not perfectly smooth. Clicking the placed shape opens up its settings which includes a "sides" setting that lets you adjust the smoothness.