About Pick & Race
Pick & Race is a free collection of animated name pickers made for classrooms. Instead of pointing at someone or drawing names from a cup, you paste a class list and let a duck race, a spinning wheel, a slot machine or one of a dozen other games choose. The point is to make picking fun, visible and fair, so students enjoy being chosen and nobody feels singled out.
How the pickers stay fair
Every tool uses the same weighted-shuffle engine. By default each name has exactly the same chance. The animation, whether it is ducks, balloons or a claw, is the costume: it shows a result that the engine has already chosen fairly. Optional No repeats keeps names from coming up again until everyone has had a turn, and the Weighted Picker lets you adjust the odds on purpose when you want to.
What is here
- Races: Duck Race, Turtle Race, Spaceship Shootdown and Balloon Pop.
- Games of chance: Slot Machine, Claw Machine, Ball Drop, Mystery Card Flip and the Spinning Wheel.
- Decisions and groups: Yes / No Wheel, Elimination Picker, Tournament Bracket Maker, Weighted Picker and the Random Team Generator.
Using it in class
Open any tool on your classroom display, paste your roster with one name per line, and press the big button. Switch on projector mode for larger, high-contrast graphics, and use the length slider to keep a pick to a few seconds when time is short or stretch it out when you want suspense. Because everything runs in the browser, there is nothing to install and no student accounts to create.
Free, supported by ads
The site is free to use. To help cover its costs it shows display ads from third-party ad networks in clearly labelled spaces away from the games and buttons, never over them. You can read how ads and data are handled in the privacy policy.