Cheat Your Friends with This Electronic Trick Die

We don’t know exactly when cubic dice were invented, but it is safe to say that trick dice designed for cheating were invented shortly after. The most common way to rig a die is by weighing down one side so that it lands down more often or hollowing out the opposite side to achieve the same effect. Because so many dice games rely on a player trying to roll a particular number, weighted dice work well in many situations. But modern electronics give us another means of cheating, as demonstrated by this wireless “mental die.”

The goal of this die is to facilitate a very specific trick. You hand the die to a friend and ask them to place it out of your view with a random side facing up. Then you guess the “rolled” number, much to your friend’s amazement. For profit, try betting on the result. Even with a weighted die, this would be a hard trick to pull off. Weighted dice don’t always land on their heavier side, they just land on that side more often then they land on others. Your friend also might not roll the die at all and could instead simply place it on a surface. This electronic trick die ensures that you succeed either way.

For this to work, you need two devices. The first is the trick die itself. The second is something that tells you which side of the trick die is facing up. Detecting the orientation of the trick die is easy with a gyroscope sensor. In this case, an MPU-6050 gyroscope sensor connects to an ESP8266 development board. Power comes from a small 160mAh lithium-ion battery. A reed switch lets the user turn the whole thing on by moving a magnet close to the die. All of the electronic components fit inside a 3D-printed die shell.

The ESP8266 in the die uses WiFi to transmit the gyroscope values to a second ESP8266 receiver unit that the cheater holds. As demonstrated, the second ESP8266 displays the received value on the serial port of a connected computer. But it would be easy to connect a small seven-segment display to show the value.

As shown, this die probably won’t fool anyone—especially not when actual money is involved. But one could refine the idea to make it more convincing. Smaller components in a more authentic-looking die would certainly help. Hiding the receiver unit would also do more to sell the trick. We recommend some kind of vibration motor, so you could keep the receiver in your pocket and simply count the number of vibration pulses to read the die roll result.