Algicosathlon-Farbrad

Algicosathlon is an elimination competition where sixteen colors compete, built in the physics sandbox Algodoo and run across a long series of events. SpinyWheel's Algicosathlon Color Wheel spins the full roster at 6.25 percent each, for picking a favorite, running predictions, and settling fan arguments.

Why these sixteen colors?

The roster is a designed color set rather than sixteen arbitrary picks. Ten are base hues spaced around the spectrum, five are shade or tint variants of hues already present, and one has no hue at all:

That structure does real work in a competition. Brown is orange darkened, Olive is yellow darkened, Navy is blue darkened, Tan and Lavender are lightened versions of orange and purple. Each of those five has a visual sibling on the roster, which gives the field built-in pairings before any event has run.

Gray is the odd one out by construction, the only contestant with no hue to be a version of. On a roster assembled this deliberately, that is unlikely to be an accident.

What are the odds of predicting a whole season?

Astronomically bad, and the number is worth seeing. Sixteen contestants can finish in 16 factorial different orders, which is 20,922,789,888,000. Roughly twenty-one trillion.

Shorter predictions are merely very hard:

Calling the winner alone is 1 in 16, or 6.25 percent, the same as a single spin. Calling the top three in the correct order is 1 in 3,360, since sixteen options narrow to fifteen and then fourteen. Calling the top three in any order is 1 in 560.

Getting from sixteen contestants to one takes fifteen eliminations, and each is a separate chance for a prediction to fail. Anyone who calls a full podium has done something genuinely improbable, which is worth remembering before anyone claims they saw it coming.

Using the Algicosathlon Color Wheel to pick a favorite

Choosing your own contestant selects for whichever color you already like, and most people find they have picked the same one every season without deciding to.

A spin hands you someone you have no attachment to, which changes how a season plays. Watching with an assigned stake is different from watching neutrally: near-eliminations matter, unremarkable mid-table finishes matter, and a contestant you would never have chosen becomes one you are tracking. The assignment is arbitrary, and being arbitrary is what makes it work.

For a group, spin once per person and remove each result before the next, so sixteen viewers can each hold a different contestant with nobody drawn twice. That converts a watch-along into a stake without anyone negotiating who gets the favorite.

Reading a wheel where half the colors are neighbors

The entries are ordered by hue, which is correct for browsing and awkward for spinning. Sorted, Lime sits beside Green and Olive; Purple sits beside Lavender and Magenta; Navy sits beside Blue. Those are the pairs hardest to tell apart at a glance, and the sort puts each right next to its lookalike.

Use Shuffle wheel before spinning to scatter them, and Sort wheel when you want the spectrum order back for checking the roster. Blind Mode is worth using for group draws, since it hides the labels until the wheel stops and nobody can call a result early.

For a general color list rather than a contestant roster, the 12 Farben covers the traditional palette, and browse the wheel library for other entertainment wheels.