Everything's always a bit better when it's personalized, so I thought I'd make a few things to bring Game Night to the next level. I made a custom die, coasters with matching drink tags, and table tents to uniquely identify each player. I took advantage of the ability to link a custom property to a piece of sketch text and built the SOLIDWORKS models in such a way that anyone can customize them to suit their needs.
The die was designed in a flattened state so I could quickly print it in multi-color and then fold and glue it together. It comes in really handy when you need to determine who gets to go first.
I designed one generic drink tag with the sketch text linked to a custom property, and then used the "Configure Feature" command to fill in a table of values to build as many tags as I want.
If you use a standard font, you can make tags with words or people's initials, but if you use a symbol font, you can populate your tags with cool images.
I used the same technique to make the matching coasters. These were cut on a CNC router with a 60 degree v-bit.
The table tents used the same technique to place symbols on the front and fun ice-breaker questions inside, but I combined this approach with sheet metal so I could see the tent in the folded and flattened state. To efficiently print things out, I made an assembly of all the flat patterns and then printed a 1:1 drawing.
I really had fun coming up with ideas to add a bit of personalization to Game Night. How would you use this technique to personalize something? Assigned seating for Uncle Bob and Aunt Sara at family gatherings? Bespoke party favors for little Joey's 8th birthday?
Check out this video for even more inspiration:
...and whatever you dream up, if you want to use my models as a starting point, you can download the SOLIDWORKS format files in this ZIP file.