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In tabletop games involving dice, it is important to ensure randomness of the dice rolls and to protect other gaming elements from being scattered by rolling dice. One way of ensuring random rolls and protecting gaming elements is to drop dice into a dice-rolling tower (“dice tower”). A dice tower is usually small (20 cm by 20 cm) and made of foam board or wood and contains various obstacles (ramps, pegs, etc.) for the dice to collide with in a confined environment. With the rising popularity of tabletop gaming and the importance of engaging students with design projects, the process of designing, building, and testing a dice tower can be the basis of various interesting physics lab activities. Here, we discuss the basics of dice tower design and construction, present the results of a few simple experiments that our students have conducted using dice towers, and outline some of the physics principles that a dice tower can be used to illustrate.

The traditional introductory-level meterstick-balancing lab assumes that students already know what torque is and that they readily identify it as a physical quantity of interest. We propose a modified version of this activity in which students qualitatively and quantitatively measure the amount of force required to keep the meterstick level. The setup for this experiment also introduces upward forces in addition to downward forces. In this very accurate experiment, the torque equation can be discerned directly from the data, and torque's symmetry between upward and downward forces naturally arises.

The traditional lab report is known to create several pedagogical shortcomings in the introductory physics course, particularly with regard to promoting student engagement and encouraging quality writing. This paper discusses the use of a “letter home” written to a non-physicist as an alternative to lab reports that creates a more authentic writing experience.

Computer simulations continue to prove to be a valuable tool in physics education. Based on the needs of an Aviation Physics course, we developed the PHYSics of FLIght Simulator (PhysFliS), which numerically solves Newton's second law for an airplane in flight based on standard aerodynamics relationships. The simulation can be used to pique students' interest, teach a number of physics concepts, and teach computational investigation techniques. This paper describes the development and operation of this simulation, illustrates an example study that can be performed using it, and suggests further ideas for its use.