📦 How to create a Speed Sorting activity

The Speed Sorting template creates a fast-paced categorisation activity where items move across a conveyor belt. Players must quickly analyse each item and grab, tap, or sort it into its correct category pool before it rolls off the screen, testing both conceptual knowledge and rapid motor reflex.

IN THIS ARTICLE:

• How is the Speed Sorting activity played?
• How and what do you type into Edit content for Speed Sorting?
• Where can I find some more examples?

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How the activity is played

The game features scrolling items that pass across a localised sorting belt or assembly lane.

• The prompt: Visual items or text boxes emerge from one side of the screen, moving continuously across the player's field of view.

• The interaction: Students must quickly click, tap, or drag the scrolling items to assign them into the designated target buckets or sorting categories positioned on the screen.

• The challenge: As the activity progresses across levels, the movement speed of the conveyor belt accelerates, reducing processing time and demanding quick decision-making.

• Completion: Missing an item or sorting it incorrectly reduces game performance scores. At the end, users can view their total session time, overall accuracy score, and add their names to the Leader board.

  
  

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Creating your Speed sorting activity

1. Click Create Activity and choose Speed sorting.

   

   
    

2. Add your content:

   • Categories: Define your primary bucket columns or group categories (e.g., "Living Things" vs. "Non-Living Things").

   • Target items: Add the specific word entries or visual items under each category list. The system will auto-scramble these items and queue them onto the moving track.

   • Image/Audio (Optional): Click the image icon to link a graphic element or upload audio parameters to make the moving targets highly visual.

3. Click Add an item or press Enter to build out the next sorting piece within your chosen group column.

4. Click Done. Wordwall will process your item groupings and configure the streaming game loop.

   
    

5. Scroll down to Visuals style to add a creative style to your activity, or tailor the difficulty in the Options panel below the activity:

   

   • Timer
     • None: No time limit is enforced on the overall game duration, giving students an untimed environment to complete the classification task.
     • Count up: Displays an ascending stopwatch that tracks exactly how long a student takes to sort through the entire item queue.
     • Count down: Sets a strict time limit (e.g., 5 minutes). The activity ends automatically if the countdown clock reaches zero.
   • Speed
     • Adjust the slider to determine how fast items scroll or pass across the screen. In the screenshot, this baseline velocity is set to 5, which can be dialed down for younger learners or ramped up for a faster reflex challenge.
   • Lives
     • Use the slider to set how many sorting errors or missed items a player can commit before encountering a Game Over screen. In the screenshot, this is set to Unlimited, ensuring students can play through the entire set regardless of mistakes.
   • Mechanics
     • Retry after incorrect answer: When checked, this option allows an item to reappear or gives students an immediate chance to correctly sort an object if their first categorization attempt was wrong.
   • End of game
     • Show answers: When checked, this displays a summary review screen at the conclusion of the activity, letting students see exactly which items belonged in each target category.
   • Saving options
     • Apply to this activity: Saves these specific configurations only for the active game file you are currently editing.
     • More: Click this dropdown to find:
       • Set as default for template: Remembers these rules as your standard configuration for every future game you build using the Speed sorting template.
       • Revert to default: Clears temporary changes and returns the options panel back to your previously saved personal defaults.
       • Revert to author's setting: Restores the activity parameters back to the original layout configured by the initial community creator.

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Creating Speed sorting with AI

You don't need to be a prompt expert to use our AI. It is designed to be intuitive and accessible directly from the activity creator.

1. Click Create Activity and select Speed sorting.

   

   
    

2. Look for the ✨ Generate with AI button (magic wand icon) at the top right of the content table.

   
    

3. Enter your content:

   • Topic: Type a clear classification subject like "Solid, Liquid, or Gas" or "Verbs vs. Nouns."

   • Text / Notes: Paste a sorting matrix, list, or informational text. The AI will isolate distinct contrasting categories and populate them with correct target examples.

   • File: Upload a PDF or Word doc. Wordwall AI will analyse the structural formatting, extract the sorting criteria, and instantly generate balanced groups of scrolling elements.

4. Click Generate. Review the category columns and the classified items, adjust or reassign any individual text values if necessary, and hit Done.

   

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Where can I find some more examples?

Some examples of Speed Sorting activities have been created by our users and shared with the Wordwall resource community.