Varying the dice material
Updated: Tuesday, June 18, 2002
The figure shown on the right once again
shows the original data points in yellow. These were
all made with cylindrical dice made out of nylon rod
stock. The data points plotted in purple were taken
with dice made from cellulose acetate, which is the
material used for making casino dice. The data points
plotted in brown were taken using dice made from 7/8"
hardwood dowel. The blue data points were taken with
dice made out of aluminum. The light green data points were
taken with dice made out of foam rubber from a toy
ball.
From this figure it is apparent that there
is a consistent variation of results with the material
that the die is made out of. The aluminum dice fall
consistently well below the line for the nylon dice.
Brass seems the same as aluminum.
The wooden dice also fall below, although not by as much.
The foam rubber dice are not rigid and
were not shaped into a precise cylindrical shape.
The polystyrene cylinder was made by lathing a
commercially available toy plastic die. Polystrene seems to
fall somewhere in the middle.
Raw data for runs on 15.50 mm thick glass