Tips and tricks: Making a building brick dice tower!

After being stuck inside for quite some time due to the snow, I though it would be fun to try making a freeform dice tower with kiddo and wanted to share the process with you!

We used a combination of LEGO, Mega Blocks, and dollar store building block kits that we’ve accumulated the past few months as building bricks have become the new favorite toy around the house.

We also did not go in with a template or detailed building plan and instead decided to improvise and let kiddo add their ideas around a basic ramp structure to see what kind of chaotic masterpiece we could create together.

Building from the base upward, we first created a base from flat panels and adding taller blocks around an area to help corral the dice at the bottom. Once this base was complete, kiddo wanted to add a volcano that was still intact from a Pokemon Mega Blocks kit, so we did.

Next, we started building a ramp out of angled blocks that lead into the lava pit and created a corner bend using other ramp-style or curved pieces to funnel dice down towards the ramp. We added structure as needed while we built. The corner didn’t need to be perfect, just directional enough to keep dice tumbling in the right path, and bumps and variations can help with jumbling the dice up to roll them as they go.

We built out slightly from the corner by adding more ramp pieces, intentionally elevating one of them to get the dice to bounce more as they fell. We also started adding walls that helped keep the dice in the right path during our mid-build tests.

To make this more tower-like, we started building upward and assembled a little turret using angled corner pieces. We then added more walls and supports, where needed, installed a large bay window that allowed us to watch the dice inside while still protecting them and keeping them from bouncing too far out, and found flat piece to use for the roof.

The finishing touch was a red “magical teleporting portal” that we made by attaching a trap door window piece to an angled tube piece. This magical teleporting portal (magic is provided by the user via their hands picking up the dice and placing them through the teleporting portal) is intended to be how the dice teleport up from the lava pit and to the top of the tower to be rolled again.

And… we now had an awesome dice tower! Here’s the video of it in use!

I’m looking forward to using this dice tower during a TTRPG with friends this coming weekend, and kiddo is very proud of their creation. I hope you enjoyed the process for making our dice tower, and I hope you can give it a try too! There are lots of plans out there if you want to follow one and polish it up, or you can free form it like we did – either works and can be a lot of fun!

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