On Sep 12, 2024, glowball wrote:
I recently read this thread because I have one of the older about 3-in square rosewood type mental die. Just now had the following thought but somebody may have already published this idea long ago but in case they haven't:

The three mental dice could be utilized to know a random playing card:

1. Make a little thin cardboard cube just barely big enough to hold the last die (I think it's the blue die). Similar to the dollar store little box idea posted earlier in this thread but a much snugger and plain white or light blue thin cardboard.

2. On the outside of the cardboard cube draw or print the following where the following inside dots are:
a. 1 dot draw a spade
b. 2 dots draw a heart
c. 3 dots draw a club
d. 4 dots draw a diamond
e. 5 dots draw a heart
f. 6 dots draw a spade

The spectator will roll three dice (the red, white, and cardboard cube with the blue die inside).

The spectator is instructed to add the value of the red and white dice to form the value of a random playing card (note that 11 equals a jack and a 12 equals a queen). You will never get an Ace or a king but that's okay there are plenty of other numbers.

The cardboard die will indicate the suit of the card.

After rolling the three dice the spectator is told to write the name of the specified playing card on a post-it note or pull the specified card out of a deck and place it face down in his hands or on a table.

It would be nice if Murphy's provided a fourth die, a blue die, that only had the suit symbols as described above.

Note that it would not be necessary to do any reprogramming, just make a blue die that physically had the suit symbols on it instead of dots.

When the magician looks at the receiver, he just adds the red and white value to get the card value and then looks at the blue number and interprets it via SHoCkeD to know the suit (note that a five is interpreted the same as a two and also note that is six is interpreted the same as a one).