Dice Tower Idea
I've been using the previous dice tower that I built off and on in various games. It has proven to be very useful for randomizing the dice and keeping them in a nice, confined space rather than bouncing across the gaming table. A new idea came to me recently that if I had more of the LEGO Technic bricks that I could build a dice tower that shook the dice up even more and could even have several exits, much like some of the cardboard or wooden dice towers have.
The basic idea would be to create a series of "pins" using the rods that come with the Technic sets and the blocks that have pin openings in them. As long as the spacing between any two pins is greater than the largest diameter of any of the dice to be tossed through it, then they shouldn't be able to get bound up inside of it.
I've started a mockup of what I'd like to build using LDraw, a program for designing LEGO sets like an AutoCAD program. The biggest drawback of this application is finding the various bricks in it as they are sorted by name and no obvious search function exists. So, unless you know the name they've chosen for the brick, you have to scroll through all the various pieces to find the desired brick.
The only real big issue, especially if there are multiple exits is to make sure the dice can't get bound up in the corners between the exits. So, maybe I'll just continue with the single exit model and just make it fold over for transportation. I do know from my previous experiments that the bricks are more than durable enough to withstand dice being dropped through them, but the structure isn't very strong when it comes to transporting it in a backpack.
I'm going to start checking the Pick-A-Brick stock at my local LEGO Store to try and get together the needed parts to build this. Maybe in a week or so I'll have a rough plan and the beginnings of the parts together to try it out.