Artificer Dice v4.0 Dev Log 1

Now that Grad School has concluded and life has settled I am picking up development on the Artificer Dice again to get it closer to a producable product. I have a two-tiered goal currently: to produce a dev model that will make it easier to play around with the code/electronics, and a production model to experiment with different ways of making the damn thing (to come much later). I will also be overhauling the BOM to include more functional hardware and features.

I began by revisiting the scale, as v3.1 felt a little too big and arbitrary. I honestly can’t remember why I sized it the way I did, but the internals certainly appreciated having the space. Some quick cardboard mockups helped visualize that. I wanted something that would feel good in the palm of one’s hand, but also be big enough to signify that it should be tossed rather than rolled.

These were aided by a complete rebuild of the model in Fusion 360. While it is quite a lot faster working with these kinds of geometries in Blender as I had previously the parametric environment and CAD utilities of Fusion make for a much more versatile design experience. It took some reacquainting with the Icosahedron as a shape to really wrap my head around how to approach the model, but I ended up with something I was so pleased with I ended up animating it in Blender for a bit of fun.

Stay tuned for future updates!