Fair teams without arguing
Captains picking their friends first is how teams become unfair. Here the wheel picks. It has a pointer for every team, so one spin gives each team one new player – and those players leave the wheel. Spin until it is empty:
Under the wheel the names are written in pointer order: the first name goes to Team 1, the second to Team 2, and so on. Every spin keeps the teams the same size.
Put in your players
The wheel starts with Player 1 to Player 12 so you can try it. Replace them with the real names, one per line – paste the whole class list at once if you have it:
Two, three or four teams
Under Options, Winners per spin is the number of teams: set it to 3 and the wheel gets three pointers and makes three teams. Take the winner off the wheel is on, so nobody lands in two teams:
Writing the teams down
Past winners keeps every spin, oldest at the bottom. Read it from the bottom up and the first name of each line is Team 1, the second Team 2 – that is your line-up:
An odd player left alone on the wheel at the end joins the team of your choice – or spins for it with the wheel set to one winner.
What people use it for
- PE lessons and five-a-side football.
- Pub quizzes and board game nights.
- Group projects in class.
- Splitting a party for charades, Pictionary or a scavenger hunt.
- Mixing departments on a team day.
Back to the original items puts every name back for the next game, and the list is remembered on this device: