Random Team Generator

How the random team generator works

Paste your names, choose either the number of teams or the number of people per team, and press Generate. The list is shuffled, then people are dealt into teams one at a time, like dealing cards. That keeps team sizes within one person of each other.

Wheelova uses your browser's crypto.getRandomValues(). According to MDN, browsers implement it as a cryptographically secure pseudo-random generator seeded with system entropy — the same kind of source used for security features. It is unpredictable in practice, but it is not a physical "true random" device such as atmospheric-noise generators.

Number of teams or people per team?

• Number of teams — when the activity needs a fixed number of groups ("four stations", "three breakout rooms").
• People per team — when the task works best at a certain size ("pairs", "groups of four"). The generator works out how many teams that makes.

Quick reference for common class sizes:

When the numbers don't divide evenly, the generator spreads the extra people so no team is more than one person bigger than another. If a team of one appears (for example 25 people in pairs), move that person into any pair to make a three.

What random teams are good for — and what they aren't

Random teams are fair in process: nobody picks, nobody is chosen last, and friendship groups get mixed. That's ideal for classroom projects, workshops, social games and mixers.

Random teams are not balanced by skill. For a competitive match, generate the teams, then swap one or two people by hand, or seed the strongest players first (put one strong player in each team, then generate the rest).

Seeding: keep certain people apart or together

The generator doesn't know who should be split up, so do it in two steps:

1. Separate. Remove the people who must be on different teams (for example, team captains or two friends who distract each other) and place one in each team yourself.
2. Generate the rest. Paste the remaining names, generate, then add your placed people to the teams.

To keep a pair together, paste them as one line ("Ana & Ben"). They'll be dealt as one entry — note that this makes their team one person larger.

Ideas

Classroom: project groups, lab partners, reading circles, debate sides, station rotation.

PE and sports: fair sides for a match, relay teams, tournament brackets — then pick who starts with the Yes or No Wheel or a coin.

Work: breakout rooms, workshop tables, hackathon teams, lunch-roulette groups.

Game nights: quiz teams, partners for card games, escape-room squads.

Tips for running groups in class

• Generate in front of the class so students see the teams weren't hand-picked.
• Give each team a role list (leader, scribe, timekeeper, reporter) and let teams pick roles, or spin for them with the Name Picker Wheel.
• Re-generate for each new project so students work with different people over a term.

Privacy

The names you paste are saved only in your own browser on this device, so they're there next time. Nothing is uploaded.