"Wheel of Fizzix"^{NOT TM} Game

So, I came up with the gameshow that follows Jeopardy here in the Greater Philly area, Wheel of Fortune! How did I do this, you ask? Well, my inquisitive friends;

1. Make yourself a little "wheel" to use. Take a look at mine in the pict:
   
   
   
   Note, I'm just throwing in a 'wheel-like' thing to use. Now, in the absence of a woodshop and seeing as I came up with this idea in about 3 minutes and had only 15 minutes to get it ready, it's only on regular white construction paper. The "Wheel" is actually a dart board! I chose silly things like
   • 100 pts
   • 500 pts
   • Lose 100 pts
   • Steal up to half of your opponents points!
   • Free homework credit
   • Bancrupt
2. Get a dart! I didn't happen to have a dart sitting around, surprisingly since I have just about EVERYTHING else! So, upon the wonderfully insightful tech advice from my VP Extraordinaire, Dorothy Realdine, "make one out of a compass"! Cool! So,
   • Get a drawing compass, NOT a magnetic one, silly!
   • Remove the pencil.
   • Wrap modeling clay around the base of the "point" - a sphere about the size of the face of a basic wristwatch. This gives the "dart" a forward center of mass and will prevent it from rotating alot.
   • Wrap the clay in duct tape, or duck tape if you can afford it... This keeps the clay from smashing into the wall from it's own inertia everytime a kid throws it.
   • Play!
     
     
3. Make up "word phrases" that have something to do with your content area... For today I used:
   • "Universal Gravitation"
   • "Conservation of Angular Momentum"
   • Get this one! "Hooke's Law of Cosines"! Sorta like what the TV game does by mixing phrases! The kids absolutely LOVED it!
   • Another? "Archimedes Principal Stumpo"! See, our Principal's name is Stephen Stumpo, a good guy, btw... Get it? And, YES! I know the "...pal" is not the right one for a scientific one, "...ple", but it's my game, dagnabbit as Walter Brennan used to say! If you don't like it, I'll take my dart and go home! MOM! Make 'im stop!
   • Alright! How's this one? "Pi are round, not square"! Eh! You have no sense of humor!
4. I had the kids get into 3 teams, pick a "Dart Thrower", and get started!
5. Playing Surface? Well, I figured drywall is a pretty good dart surface, so I removed a few posters from my APS "Wall-O-Posters", taped up the Dart Board of Fizzix, and had the kids throw away!
6. Rules? RULES? We don't need no stinking ROOLS!" I used these:
   • The dart actually has to "stick" or at least make a hole in the paper with the 'pointy end' to count as a turn.
   • If the dart bounces off the wall, pick it up and try again. Big deal. (Be ready to wait sometimes... I thought I was poorly endowed with eye hand coordination! Wait till you see the kids! One kid took 27 throws before I just gave in and said it counted...)
   • Whatever they hit isn't awarded till they pick a VALID letter in the phrase.
   • In order to actually be awarded the COOL prizes, like the free homework credit or free LAB grade upgrade, the team has to WIN THE ROUND by solving the puzzle! All others lose! Sorry, that's real life. One winner. The rest of us are losers...

Like I said, I just threw this together this morning in 15 minutes. I'm going to work on it and will update this page as I do. A real frillin' dart would really have helped today, tho.