Using Dice Towers in an introductory Physics Lab

In tabletop games involving dice, it is important to ensure randomness of the dice rolls and to protect other gaming elements from being scattered by rolling dice. One way of ensuring random rolls and protecting gaming elements is to drop dice into a dice-rolling tower (“dice tower”). A dice tower is usually small (20 cm by 20 cm) and made of foam board or wood and contains various obstacles (ramps, pegs, etc.) for the dice to collide with in a confined environment. With the rising popularity of tabletop gaming and the importance of engaging students with design projects, the process of designing, building, and testing a dice tower can be the basis of various interesting physics lab activities. Here, we discuss the basics of dice tower design and construction, present the results of a few simple experiments that our students have conducted using dice towers, and outline some of the physics principles that a dice tower can be used to illustrate. © 2019 American Association of Physics Teachers.