How to Make Your Own 6-sided Dice on TinkerCad

Hello you wonderful human beings! Today I am going to show you how to make a 6-sided die on Tinkercad! It can be used for many things from RP to playing a game such as liars dice. I don't have a 3-D printer but don't hesitate to mess around with the size of your dice after making it and print it off! If you have any questions just let me know and I will help you. I did make this Instructable specifically FOR the RPG challenge but it doesn't matter because you can still use this for whatever you need it for.

Note: I accidentally placed the four where the five was suppose to be sorry if you get a little bit confused by that. I fixed it later on when I was making the five. If you are wondering where the numbers are suppose to go, it helped me to know that all the opposite sides add up to 7.

So for this I just started a new project on Tinkercad and I placed down the "Dice" option. When the screen is orange that means I took the "workplane" and dragged it down to the surface that I wanted it to be on. That makes it easier so that I don't have to mess with it a whole bunch and I can just place it down like if I was placing it down straight onto the workplane. The measurements for the sphere is 3.25x3.25x3.25. If you want then you can take one of the edges of the sphere and press shift and drag it down and that will make it all shrink. I also copy and pasted it so that I didn't have to make a sphere and change it into a hole every time.

Sphere that makes the dots in the dice: 3.25x3.25x3.25

Dice block: 16x16x16

You might think the first dot that I made would be the easiest and take the least amount of time. In reality it took me the most. I'll show you what I did in the pictures and also guide you through HOW I did it.

First I brought the dice piece onto my work plane. Next, I brought out the sphere. These two things should be simple enough. Changing the sphere into a hole is a little more difficult. It's still not that difficult, though. You just have to press the "hole" option right next to the "solid" button. That button is in the top right, next to the place where you took out the sphere and dice. I then took one of the corners that you can use to change the shape, and pressed down shift (on my computer, I don't know if it will be different for yours) and moved it down. By the time I finished it was 3.25. (I want to say it's inches but the snap grid is set to mm) To change the snap grid (because if you want to make it 3.25 without typing) you go down into the bottom right hand corner and you press where it says "1.0 mm" and you change it to "0.25 mm". The final thing you need to do to make the first dot is take the black triangle at the top of the shape (don't get this confused with the white square, that will stretch your sphere out) and move the sphere to the height you want it to be at then you can use your arrows on your keyboard (or drag it) to the place you want it to be. Don't make the sphere go into the dice piece fully, I did about half way and that worked perfectly. The hole won't show up immediately, that will be one of the last steps I show you.

To make the second and third side you have to know where they go. Each of the sides add up to 7 so you cant put one and three across from each other. What I did (and what I think it is like) is I put the first and second sides right next to each other with the third one on top. I changed the work plane for both of the numbers. To do that all you have to do is go to the top right above the "basic shapes" it says work plane. All you have to do is click and drag to the place where you want your work plane to be and then you can basically drag objects out onto there. Its really useful for times like this where you need to just place it down and not have to pull it up to take more work. If you want to do that though, be my guest I'm not going to stop you. I looked up what I dice looks like so that I could accurately place these. I started to do the second side and it went perfectly!! I placed the dots where they should go and then I took fiddled around with it and the snap grid until the dots were to my liking. Then I took the work plane and I dragged it out into open space and that just reset it. To make the holes go in I just moved the dot (because it is like it was on flat ground but only floating) in until it looked good. For the third dot I had to do it a little differently. I did the same steps to make the work plane there and get the dots there and then I set up the dots. The third side is on the top, though, so I couldn't move the dots in like I did for the first and second sides. What I did is I had to take the black triangle and move it downwards until I felt it was good and I did it for the other two dots as well. I made sure they were all at the same level and moved on. That is how I did the second and third sides.

Side number four is like side number three, it is at the bottom. I just turned it to the bottom and moved the work plane there. You might not notice a difference but the work plane flipped around so that when you CTRL+V then it will be placed down on the bottom of the dice. Next, I just pasted four dots and lined them up how they were suppose to go. Of course, it wasn't perfect so I messed around with the snap grid again and lined them up how I wanted them to go. I then had to get the dots through, so I just dragged out the work plane to empty space and then took the black triangle that is above the white squares and moved it up until they were all aligned perfectly and would make even holes in the dice piece. That's basically all I did for this one.

Note: In these photo's I messed up and accidentally placed it next to the second side. It is actually suppose to go on the bottom and I fixed that later on. In the final show off it will be all correct.

Fun fact! Dice is the plural for Die!

Ok sides five and six are simple, too. For side five I took the work plane and pasted all my dots and then moved them the way they are suppose to be. It was simple like all the other sides. I messed around with the snap grid and got them perfect (to me) and then I moved on to the next side. Side six was easy but it was the final side so I was happy to be finishing it. After you got all of the sides perfect and they way you need them to be it is time to actually make the holes!

To group is a little bit complicated. You have to drag your mouse so that you have highlighted all of the shapes. All together it should be 22 shapes. Then you click the "group" icon. You can ungroup this any time by clicking the shape and clicking "ungroup" The group icon looks like a square with a circle attached to the side. Once you click it you will see that your dice has holes in it now. If you have any questions on how to group something please leave a comment and I will get back to you as quick as possible.

I am super happy the way that this turned out. It looks just the way I wanted too and I wouldn't want it to be any other way. All of the sides look good and they are all looking the way I want them to. If I could do anything differently then I would say that I would probably plan more. In every day life you use the problem solving process and I had to use it for this, too.

1. Define the problem. What am I doing for this? I'm making a dice.

2. Prepare. For this step I did look at pictures but I didn't prepare like I should have. This took longer than necessary and even though it turned out perfectly, it took too long.

3. Try. In this I had to go back 6 times because I prepared each step as it was happening. That is why it took longer than needed. You can go back as many times as you need, in the end it will all work out. Might not work out perfectly but it will still work.

4. Reflect. This went pretty well and I enjoyed it. It challenged me to figure what the size of the diameter would be and what was going to happen.

Ok I said I wouldn't do that but I got a hold of a 3D printer. If you are planning on doing this you will have to edit the grid. My 3D printer is 5 inches by 6 inches so I set it to that. I had to change the 'units' to inches, don't assume that this will be the same for you. Then you press update grid. If you are doing it like this the size of the sphere's will be .134x.134x.134 and then you just do all the steps before this. If you want you can do it like you would if you weren't 3D printing it and then just set your grid, then all of it will change to fit the settings. I did make the dice piece a little bit bigger so that it was .66x.66x.66 to make it closer to a regular dice. I am not going to show you the pictures of the 3D print because the person who is letting me use the 3D printer does not want me to. Why? I don't know. I hope this instructable taught you something!! Have a wonderful day/night! Bye.