A simple web app for randomly selecting a winner.

For fifteen years, the engineering teams I've run have ended the week with a ceremony where each person on the team shows off the work they completed that week. It has always been a fun celebratory way to end the week.

We started this ceremony at Gnip, a startup I was at many years ago. One of the engineers on our team, Eric Wendelin, put together this hilarious spinning unicorn that helped us randomly select a winner. Putting this out into the ether for all to experience the joy of the unicorn.

• Enter a list of names (one per line)
• Click "Choose Winner"
• Watch the unicorn spin and point to the demo winner

Simple as that.

1. Clone the repo

2. Open UnicornRoulette.html in your browser

3. Enter names in the text area, one per line

4. Click "Choose Winner"

• Rainbow-colored names that rotate around the unicorn
• The selected name scales up 5x
• Pure vanilla JavaScript - no dependencies

Built with:

• HTML/CSS/JavaScript
• A unicorn GIF

The app calculates positions for each name around a circle, then rotates the unicorn to point at the randomly selected winner. Each name gets a different color.

Why not? It made our Friday demos more fun, and after so many years, it's become a tradition worth sharing.

Do whatever you want with it. Enjoy.

May the demo gods smile upon thee and your Fridays end on a high note.