Ball Drop (A Free Classroom Name Picker)

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A random name picker for the classroom, built as a Plinko board. Type your class list into the panel on the left, hit DROP, and every name gets a ball at the top. The balls fall through the pegs and the first one to the bottom wins. It takes about fifteen seconds and the whole room watches all of it.

There is no account to make and nothing for students to log into. Your class list saves in your browser, so it is still there next period.

How to use it

1. Type or paste your names into the panel on the left, one per line.
2. Hit DROP. Every name gets its own ball, with the name written on it.
3. Watch them fall. The finish order fills in on the left as each ball lands.
4. The winner is whichever ball lands first, or last, depending on the Win setting.
5. Hit Out to remove the winner from the list, then drop again to pick the next one. That is how you get through a whole class without repeats.

The settings

• Speed: Slow, Normal, or Fast. How quickly the balls fall.
• Course: Short, Normal, Long, or Epic. How far they have to travel. Epic drags it out, which is sometimes exactly what you want.
• Names: Big, Huge, or RAGE. How large the name sits on the ball. RAGE is readable from the back of any room.
• Win: First down or Last down. Flip it to Last down when nobody wants to be the one picked.
• Sound: on by default. Turn it off if another class is testing next door.
• Full screen: the button in the top right. Use it. The board is much easier to follow when it fills the projector.

There are keyboard shortcuts once you have clicked into the board: Space drops, Esc resets, and N hides the names panel so the class only sees the board.

Ways to use it in class

• Cold calling without the dread. Set Win to Last down and the ball nobody is rooting for is the one that answers.
• Presentation order. Run it once and read the finish order from the top. Nobody argues with a ball.
• Making teams. Drop, take the first four names, hit Out four times, then drop again for the next group.
• Who goes first. Use it to pick the starting team in any of the review games below.
• Handing out the job nobody wants. Last down wins, and physics takes the blame instead of you.

More classroom games

• Deal or Nah Deal — answer a question to open a briefcase, then take the Banker’s call
• The Unfair Game — a numbered-grid review game with hidden score twists
• Family Feud-ish — guess the top hidden answers to a prompt
• Word Wall — sort 16 words into four hidden groups
• Owl Wordle — play Wordle together as a class
• G-Party — a CSV-driven classroom Jeopardy game
• Class Digital Board — timers, group maker, and a scoreboard on one screen

See all classroom games.

Looking for more? Here are 11 classroom review games that actually work, including the no-prep ones that need nothing but a whiteboard.

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