Pair people with items at random — chores, teams, seating, who presents first.
Basis: Randomly placed rungs traced top to bottom (ghost leg / amidakuji)·2026-08-28 verified·Editorial policy
Tool Overview & Key Purpose
A ghost leg (amidakuji) tool that pairs people with items at random. Put participants on the verticals and items at the bottom, and each path shows who got what — unlike a plain draw, everyone can follow how the result came about.
Step-by-Step Usage Instructions
1STEP 1
Set the number of participants (2 to 10 or more) and enter their names.
2STEP 2
Enter the items to assign at the bottom — cleaning zones, team numbers, presentation order, seat numbers.
3STEP 3
Press Generate Ladder, then click each participant to trace their path, or reveal every result at once.
4STEP 4
Too few rungs leaves the outcomes poorly mixed, so set more rungs than participants.
Real-World Scenarios & Practical Cases
3 Practical CasesScenario #1
Splitting office cleaning duties
Put six team members on the verticals and recycling, vacuuming, windows, kitchen, bins and a rest slot at the bottom, and the week is assigned in one pass.
Re-running it each week keeps the same zone from landing on the same person repeatedly.Scenario #2
Forming teams and a speaking order
Split a class or workshop into teams one through four, or assign presentation slots. Because the path is visible, nobody has to take "why am I first?" on trust.
Repeat a team name across several items to balance headcount between teams.Scenario #3
Assigning seats
Use seat numbers as the items and each person is matched to exactly one seat. Two people landing on the same seat cannot happen — the structure rules it out.
Match the number of items to the number of participants for a complete one-to-one assignment.Assignment method
Each rung between two verticals is a transposition — it swaps two positions — and the whole ladder is those transpositions composed in order. Composing permutations always yields another permutation, so two people can never reach the same item and no item is left unassigned.Pro Tips & Key Considerations
With few rungs, a starting position tends to drop straight down. Two or three rungs per participant mixes the paths properly.Revealing one path at a time rather than all at once lets participants see for themselves that the assignment was not decided by hand.If there are fewer items than participants, some items get assigned twice. Match the counts for a one-to-one split.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
Sources & References
Wikipedia — Ghost Leg (Amidakuji) OverviewBasis: Randomly placed rungs traced top to bottom (ghost leg / amidakuji) · 2026-08-28 verified