I need to create wheel of fortune simulation for a fund raiser. My basic idea is to hook a laptop to a projector so that the image on screen is the letter wall. The computer operator would then be able to light up the correct squares and then reveal the letter. The answers need to be custom to fit the fund raiser.

So any ideas as to what program could accomplish this. I've have some programming experience but its been years. Any ideas are welcome..

What kind of timeframe do you have?

Couple of Weeks. October 6th is the event date

I have no idea how you want this to look or function, but I'm an Excel guy and off the top of my head you could do it this way:

Have a letters called list down column A that someone enters when a letter is called. Then, enter your puzzle elsewhere on the sheet and use the same color to fill the cells and color the text. Next, have your puzzle conditionally formatted (Black Text, no color fill) using a vlookup to look for the letters of your puzzle in the "Letters Called" section.

Like this:

Wheel

edit: The Excel version only has borders around the cells that contain letters (whether hidden or not).

You can also link the puzzle portion of the table to a PowerPoint. Then have the person that is "driving" the presentation enter the letters on the spreadsheet and refresh the the link in the PowerPoint.

[This message has been edited by BEaggie08 (edited 9/24/2013 2:30p).]

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What kind of timeframe do you have?

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Curious as well.

Might be a fun quick project, but if you need it within the next night or two, I won't be able to touch it.

Excel would work well. Combination of good formatting and match.

Put your answers into a separate sheet. Put a match function into your display sheet similar to what the above poster put on google docs. Put letter guesses on the left hand column of the "live" page.

Here is a start:

=if(iserror(match([answer cell],[guesses range],0),"",[answer cell])

Fill in the brackets, obviously.

Might want to check this out:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nycsa28FNJc

*Haven't tried it personally but looks promising.

That excel formula made me want to cry just looking at it. I'll take a deeper look at it tomorrow. The YouTube link looks very promising. Thanks guys

Anyone in your group that is doing the fundraiser that has worked any amount of time in Finance? Any analyst worth their salt should be able to put the mechanics of this together in an hour or two.

Check the web for power points already set up in the wheel of fortune fashion. You would be amazed at how many teachers use those types of games for review.

I found quite a few different versions just searching wheel of fortune ppt

[This message has been edited by AgFan247 (edited 9/25/2013 10:36a).]

[This message has been edited by AgFan247 (edited 9/25/2013 10:37a).]

[This message has been edited by AgFan247 (edited 9/25/2013 10:39a).]

If you have web access, I may play around with a web app tonight. Sounds like a fun, fairly easy project.

messed around with the idea some tonight - this is a very rough (I mean very, very rough) version.

All you should have to do is type your phrase in the top line and either hit the "New Puzzle" button or hit enter. Type your guesses in the guesses line (deleting will remove it from the field, but the puzzle will not undo).

When completed it will show the winning phrase. At that point, type in a new puzzle to start again.

I had it where you couldn't see the puzzle being typed, but didn't like it so for now, you just have to tell the person to close their eyes while you type it in. May make it where it hides by default with a "show phrase" button or something. It goes away as soon as the puzzle is generated.

NOTES:
* Doesn't handle word breaks at the moment, so you may end up with a word split across 2 lines
* It won't handle anything beyond alphanumeric characters at the moment (Texas A&M, for instance, is a no go)
* Only tested on my macbook pro with chrome, so your mileage may vary

If you want to use it, I can clean up some of the issues mentioned above.

If not it was a fun project for an evening (let me know if you are using it so I don't take it down).

http://www.programmingjosh.com

You guys are awesome. You are also helping a great cause. Thanks a ton

Moved it to http://www.programmingjosh.com/wheel to get it off of the root of my domain, just FYI.

Josh that works really well. I could really use this is you wouldn't mind. I would of course need web access. What did you use to make it if you don't mind me asking

That's fine by me - I'll try to clean up some of the stuff I mentioned before.

It's using Ember.js so it's a JavaScript app.

Source is here if anyone cares https://bitbucket.org/cochranjd/wheeloffortune

Josh, I hate to bother but was wondering if you had a chance to look at the word wrap issue. If not I can make it work the way it is. Thanks

Sorry didn't see this until now - just fixed word wrap and was going to bump the thread to let you know and saw your last response.

When do you need it (or have you already had the fund raiser)?

Should work at this point with wrapping and everything.

I'll PM you my e-mail - that'll be the best way to reach me.

Dang - just saw October 6th was the event.

Sorry man, I feel bad