Computes pseudo-random bingo cards to fill with a list of items

bingo.rb

puts "How many players?"
players = gets.chomp.to_i
puts "How many items?"
items = gets.chomp.to_i
(1..players).each do |i|
  puts "card #{i}"
  card = Array.new
  (1..5).each do |row|
    print "  "
    (1..5).each do |col|
      if(row == 3 && col == 3)
        print " F "
      else
        begin
          next_num = rand(items) + 1
        end while !card.index(next_num).nil?
        card << next_num
        print " " if next_num < 10
        print next_num
        print " "
      end
    end
    print "\n"
  end
  print "\n"
end

v2.rb

equire 'prawn'
require 'spreadsheet'

items = []
Spreadsheet.open('bingo_items.xls').worksheet(0).each do |row|
  items << row[0] unless row[0].nil?
end

#items.each { |i| puts i }

puts "How many players?"
players = gets.chomp.to_i

Prawn::Document.generate 'bingo_cards.pdf' do 
  (1..players).each do |current_player|

    font_size 22
    text "Commercial Bingo", :align => :center
    font_size 18
    text "Super Bown XLVI", :align => :center
    move_down 15
    font_size 16
    text "Player #{current_player}"
    font_size 14
    move_down 30

    card = [[ "B", "I", "N", "G", "O"]]
    (1..5).each do |row|
      row_items = []
      (1..5).each do |col|
        if(row == 3 && col == 3)
          row_items << "FREE SPACE"
        else
          begin
            next_num = rand(items.length)
          end while card.flatten.include?(items[ next_num ])
          row_items << items[next_num]
        end
      end
      card << row_items
    end
    move_down 50
    table card do
      width = 500
      cells.valign = :center
      cells.align = :center
      row(0).font_style = :bold
      row(0).size = 16

      #free space
      row(3).column(2).border_width = 2
      row(3).column(2).font_style = :bold
    end
    start_new_page unless current_player == players
  end
end

Note: This does not generate typical bingo cards with number ranges for each column. I wrote this to generate cards for "Commercial Bingo" for the Super Bowl. I wrote up a list of 35 things to look for in commercials and I needed to randomize the placement of the items on some cards for our guests.

Another year, another Bingo game. This year, I improved the script to generate PDFs of the bingo cards. Here's how it works: First a list of items which might appear in a commercial are imported from an Excel spreadsheet. Simply put an xls file named 'bingo_items.xls' in the same folder as the script listing the times in the first column. Second, the script will prompt you for the number of players. That's it. You will get a PDF named 'bingo_cards.pdf' output in the same directory with as many pages as you selected players. The script still prevents duplicates from appearing on the same sheet and it will print out this (2012) year's Super Bowl number.

Happy Bingo-ing!