"I've often visualized a Trouble Pop-o-matic[0] hooked to a webcam and a solenoid."
I've had the exact same idea, derived from a machine to roll dice.
I was going to use a simple motor rotating with a cam, beneath a die in a small enclosed box. Stops after N cam rolls, snaps a picture of the die face, bit of OCR and continues. You could generate quite a few random numbers using say two 32 side dies. A simpler method with less moving parts would be what you've described. I remember playing this game with a dice enclosed with a spring. Press it down and the spring bent, popped back and the dice rolled.
I've had the exact same idea, derived from a machine to roll dice.
I was going to use a simple motor rotating with a cam, beneath a die in a small enclosed box. Stops after N cam rolls, snaps a picture of the die face, bit of OCR and continues. You could generate quite a few random numbers using say two 32 side dies. A simpler method with less moving parts would be what you've described. I remember playing this game with a dice enclosed with a spring. Press it down and the spring bent, popped back and the dice rolled.