What a SpinKit template actually is
A template is a starting list, not a finished draw. Opening one copies the entries, colours and mode onto this device so you can remix them before anyone spins. It is the opposite of a locked “spin this exact wheel” file: teachers swap in today’s register, streamers replace sample names with real entrants, and dinner wheels lose last week’s leftovers.
Use a template when the shape of the draw is known and the names are not. A classroom picker, a Pokémon-type wheel or a Minecraft build prompt already has the right number of slices and a sensible title. A blank wheel is faster only when you already have the list in front of you and do not want to delete placeholder rows first.
Three modes show up in the gallery, and they are not interchangeable. A wheel template picks one winner from one list. A slot template picks one item from each reel so you get a combination — meal plus side, prompt plus constraint, character plus flaw. A Spin Sheet template keeps columns together, which is what you want when the winner’s name has to arrive with an email, a ticket number or a table assignment.
Remixing is the point. Change weights if one prize should be rarer. Delete slices that do not apply today. Recolour a wheel so it reads on a projector. None of that publishes back to the original. If you later share a short template code, you are publishing your remixed copy, not the community preset you started from.
Skip templates when the source of truth is a live spreadsheet you still need to clean — open Spin Sheet and import the file. Skip them when you need to split a roster into groups rather than pick a winner — that is Teams. And if you only want to check whether the engine is biased, skip the gallery and use the fairness lab or the fair-wheels guide.
Opening a template does not require an account. Lists stay on this device unless you deliberately publish or export them. The gallery is a catalogue of starting points; the draw still happens in the same local-first studio as a wheel you built from scratch.