Hi Ultimates,
It's the start of another weekend!
Project Status & Expectations
Molds & Samples
Here's the first image of the first out of tool dUltimate dice:
Looks like the manufacturer rolled a 20 *crit* and a 16 (on the d20) with the first out of tool dUltimate dice.
What do you think? Excited?
Estimated Timeline
Just to repeat my estimation from last week:
Assuming that samples are poured next week *they are*. They need to be painted (maybe in the same 1 week? *they are not*) then shipped to the Netherlands (+1 week) for me and the purchasing agent to check. Checking will involve making pictures of all sides of the dice and describing and communicating (+1 week) to the manufacturer the parts that are good and the parts that still require improvement. Based on the impact of the feedback they might need to make and ship another sample for checking (+3 weeks).
When the samples are approved they will want their final payment on their account (+1 week) before they can plan our production. Since we are not the only once using their services this 'production time' of 4-6 weeks is probably mostly waiting. After that the purchasing agent will check the dice on site (+1 week) before it will all be shipped to the Netherlands (+4 weeks).
From that point on it's a first shipping test run (+1 week) and they I can start packing and shipping all the other dice to Kickstarter backers over an expected 3 week period.
If I kept counting correctly that gives us an estimate of 20-22 weeks from today before dice are actually going to be arriving in your mailboxes. This is about 5 months give or take, which would mean fulfillment would take place in December 2022 or January 2023.
Of course, this is an estimate and I will do everything to get to shipping these earlier then later, but I simply do not control every factor involved.
I already talked with my purchasing agent about this and if there is some way to speed this up, but according to them I can only be ready for when the manufacturer requires our response. Pushing them to work faster and harder will not result in a good relationship and can actually harm the product quality by a lot.
I hope you all can be patient for just a bit more, but my mailbox is always open in case you want to get in contact with me about this news.
Pledge Manager
You can still make changes to your address information yourself by going back to the PledgeBox link in your mailbox. Before the dice will be shipped I'll send out a reminder for everyone to check their address information via mail & Kickstarter. For anything else you can contact me at info@lenpolygon.com
New LEN polygon RNG project
Last week we talked about random being unpredictable. Let's zoom in on a coin flip as an example.
The randomness of coin flips
If you flip a coin then you'll randomly get heads or tails right? Well... yes it is random..., but will it
always be random enough? ( https://youtu.be/9rIy0xY99a0?t=338 )
Like the video shows, not all coins are made equal. Thus some have a distribution that is not 50/50% making it slightly more predictable and slightly less random.
Otherwise if you'd know all the starting conditions and mechanical effects involved in the coin flip you could force a certain result. Similar to how you could "half-ass" the flip by making it turn only 180 degrees or 360 degrees before catching it. Thus the starting conditions of the coin can affect the outcome of the next result making it more predictable and less random.
Finally, what's the source of chaos that you're using? Is it only you flipping the same coin and getting a result each time, or it a group of people that are all flipping various coins at various paces giving more variations in all the variables and thus more chaos?
These are all important things to think about when trying to make a RNG. Whether it's a coin, dice, a piece or software or hardware they all need to have a proper chaos source, results unlinked to the starting conditions, and have an even distribution to be random enough.
Next week I want to look into finding out if there is a way to test or quantify this randomness. Because our RNG project should be proper random...
Keep on rolling!
-Len