Random group generator

How it works

You paste or type the roster. You choose how many groups you want, or how many people belong in each group. The generator shuffles the roster, then cuts it into buckets. Group A is not “better” than Group B. It is the next slice of a shuffled list. If you do not like a slice and you click again, you have replaced the draw. The first groups were the random ones.

The tool only knows the names you gave it. A missing student is not in a group. A name pasted twice is two seats. Nicknames and legal names for the same person become two people unless you clean the list first. Garbage in is not a fairness bug in the generator. It is a roster bug.

Remainders are normal. Twenty-three people into groups of five is four groups of five and one group of three, or some other leftover rule you state before you click. A generator that hides the leftover person has not solved fairness. It has dropped a name.

Classroom, workshop, and team cuts

Teachers use a random group generator so the same three friends do not form a permanent island. Facilitators use it so a workshop does not cluster by who sat down first. Rec leagues use it when the hat of names is too slow and too easy to peek into. The generator does not make the activity better. It makes the assignment hard to argue with, if the room watched the click.

Equal-size groups: set the group count, accept leftover seats in the last group or spread leftovers by a stated rule. Fixed partners: generate groups of two. A leftover person is a three, or sits out a round, if that is the rule.

Lab benches: generate, then map group numbers onto benches so the tool is not also a seating chart you invent after. Repeats across weeks: save each draw. Random does not promise that last week’s group never returns.

If skill balance matters, a pure shuffle is the wrong instrument. Shuffle inside seeds, or deal from ranked pots, then say that out loud. A “random” group that was quietly edited so each table has a strong student is a seeded draw. That can be fair teaching. It is not what the button claimed.

Rules that keep the draw honest

Write the rules before the shuffle, the way you would write them on a board. Clean the list: one line per person, no duplicates, no empty lines. State the group size or the group count, and what happens to leftovers.

Generate once. Publish the groups where the room can see them. Only redraw if a name was wrong, not because a group looks inconvenient. A generator is a poor raffle machine for prizes, and it is not a security tool. It is the wrong place to assign passwords, exam seating that must resist cheating at a high-stakes level, or anything where a participant might gain by predicting the shuffle. For a Tuesday lab, it is enough. For a contest with money, use a process designed for that.

A group is not random if you click again until your friends sit together. Save the output. A generator page is not a register of what happened at 10:15. Paste the groups into the lesson plan, the chat, or the board. If a late arrival needs a seat, add them by a rule you already have: next leftover slot, or a new draw of the whole list. Mixing those two mid-stream is how the room decides the tool is political.