Traditional dices are not accessible for non sighted users. This rotating dice is a great solution.
Following the design of Gustavo Rezende I made some new components and some changes to his model to make an accessible rotating dice for non sighted users. Some of the components in this model come from his design you can find here: https://www.printables.com/model/74097-rotating-dice-2.
The rotating braille dice have an advantage to be accessible, but also helps that you don’t need to search for your dice when you roll them. Also the tactile experience is nice for Visually impaired people. The sound and feel make it very nice to use it over and over again.
Please follow the original description and printing tips to have a good print:
To make one, you’ll need:
- 2 small bearings (3x10x4 mm) like these ones:
https://www.amazon.com/Fishing-Shielded-Miniature-Bearings-VXB/dp/B002BBF59C - 7 little magnet cylinders (3mm):
https://www.magnetstore.co.uk/neodymium-sphere-magnets/3mm-sphere-magnet/ - a 27.5mm length metal rod, with 3mm in diameter. I think 2.8mm will work.
- two 16mm length screws, 3mm diameter (M3).
Print the parts with 0.1 or 0.2 layer height. I printed the parts with 20% infill, 3 shells. The dice can be printed with 50% to give them some weight and moment of inertia.
Snap the magnets by pressing them against the proper holes (indicated in the image) with a hard surface (a ruler, for example). The magnets holes were made to let the magnets free for spinning, to ensure the attraction force between them (not repulsion). Depending on how the magnets balls were made they can have magnetic poles changing across its surface – or from inside to outside. So, if you get the first type, they will spin and attract each other.
The images show the order of assembly.
The toy makes a nice sound when spinning.
There is a small margin of error, it can stop between numbers, but it doesn’t ruin the experience.
Since it has one dice only, it has magnets on just one side, so there are pairs of supports for each version, one with the magnet hole and one without it.
