Lucky Drop: a Plinko-style classroom game with a golden bucket

Lucky Drop is a Plinko-style classroom game: a right answer earns a drop, the team picks one of five chutes, and a ball bounces down through a board of pegs into a bucket of points. Every bucket scores something, and one golden bucket is worth 10. It works for any age.

At a glance

How to play Lucky Drop

1. Make or pick a question set: type a topic, paste a word list or your own questions, snap a textbook page, or open a set from the library.
2. Pick Lucky Drop, set the teams and start. Teams take turns. Scan the QR code on the screen (or type the 6-digit PIN) and your phone becomes the remote.
3. Play. The team whose turn it is answers. If it's right, the team picks a chute from 1 to 5: tap the number on the screen, tap it on your phone, or press keys 1 to 5. The ball bounces through the pegs and the bucket it lands in is added to the score. A wrong answer gets no drop. After the last question, the highest score wins.

Rules and scoring

• Seven buckets, left to right: 3, 1, 2, 4, 2, 1, 3. Each chute sits above one of the five middle buckets (1, 2, 4, 2, 1). The 3-point buckets on the edges need a lucky bounce.
• The golden bucket is 10. Each turn one of the five middle buckets turns gold, and it moves to a new place for the next turn. A ball dropped straight above it lands there about 1 time in 4; from the chute next to it, about 1 time in 8.
• Balls land near their chute, but not always. Most drops end in the bucket below or one bucket either side, and any bucket is possible. When the gold is far away, the middle chute is the steady choice: it lands in the 4 about 4 times in 10.
• Double and triple questions multiply the points from that drop, so a jackpot on a triple question is 30.
• You can also switch on a timer (10 to 60 seconds; running out counts as a wrong answer), losing a point for a wrong answer, steal (another team can answer a missed question and take the turn's reward), hidden scores, seasonal themes and calm effects. A score never drops below zero.

What you can teach with it

For English, every question format works. Some ideas:

• Wild animals at A1: picture questions, like the zebra above.
• Spelling practice: the class hears or sees a word and a student spells it aloud.
• Opposites at A2: "hot → ?" as a meaning question.

Any subject works as well: quick arithmetic or times tables, science true/false questions, or history and geography multiple choice ("Which is the longest river in Africa?").

Tips from the classroom

• Big classes: four teams, a different student answering each turn. Add a class list and the screen shows whose turn it is.
• Make the choice part of the lesson: "Go for the gold or play it safe?"
• Turn on steal so a missed question isn't dead time for the other teams.
• If one team pulls far ahead, mark the last few questions as double.
• On a touch display, the student who answered can tap the choice.

Play it without a screen

• Draw seven buckets along the bottom of the board and write 3, 1, 2, 4, 2, 1, 3 in them.
• Draw five chutes above the middle five, and star one bucket as the 10-point "gold" each turn.
• After a right answer, the team picks a chute and rolls a die: 1–2 lands one bucket left, 3–4 straight down, 5–6 one bucket right.
• Move the star to a new bucket after every drop.

The screen version adds the real bouncing ball, keeps the odds and the score, and runs from your phone.

Questions teachers ask

Is Lucky Drop free?

Yes. Every game is on the free plan with 2–4 teams, and library games and your own typed questions are free to play. The free plan also includes 10 AI question sets a month (3 from photos); Oly Pro adds more and up to 8 teams.

Do students need devices?

No. The class plays on one screen, and you run the game from your phone or the keyboard (C correct, X not yet, R show the answer, Space next).

How many students can play?

The whole class at once, in 2–4 teams on the free plan or up to 8 with Pro. Classes of 40 work fine.

How do you win the golden bucket?

Pick the chute right above it. That lands in the gold about a quarter of the time; the chute next to it about one time in eight.

Can a team get zero points?

Not from a drop: every bucket is worth at least 1. A team scores nothing only by missing the question, and loses a point only if you switch on "Wrong answers lose a point".

Can I use my own questions?

Yes. Paste them as question | answer | wrong, wrong, or edit any set before you play.

For more games of luck after each answer, try Lucky Wheel or Claw Machine.