Random Spinners update with improved/fixed game mode

Finally as promised in the last blog post, random spinners activity is now updated and working properly. This means it can be used as four probability spinners, for use in lessons to generate random numbers for example. Generating random numbers was fine, but unfortunately the second part of the activity had been broken for a while. Users had reported seeing strange symbols instead of numbers or algebraic expressions. This was mostly a simple encoding issue, however I decided to rewrite most of the code to make the activity more useful.

The activity now can be used as a maths game, select a number of spinners to show, two up to four. Switch to find rule from the select drop down menu. Now when the spinner have been spun, students have to make the target number using the four rules add, subtract, divide and multiply. They are also allowed to think use brackets to determine the order of calculations.

The image on the right gives an example. The target number was 12 and the calculation has been revealed as 2( 1 + 5 ), the last box to be revealed would show the algebraic expression a( b + c). With four spinners and the spinner values increased to twelve sides, finding the calculation can be challenging. 

Or just use the activity to practice algebraic substitution or order of operations.