You've just received your invitation to the most famous school for witches and wizards, but due to social distancing and a global pandemic, you're stuck with remote learning! No ride on the express train through the mountains, enjoying meals with your house mates under a candle lit dome in the great hall. And any thought of joining the schools sports involving flying brooms will have to wait another year. What to do, stuck in the world of Muggles, forbidden to practice magic? Well, at least you could use magic, cleverly concealed so that no one might notice, within an old programmable calculator, to apparate an virtual sorting hat, just long enough to sort you into your future house. The would at least give you plenty of time to get your wardrobe in order, matching the color scheme of your house mates.
Since we live in the Muggle world, the closest thing we have to magic at school is clever programming, so we'll need to rely on that bit of trickery to come up with a solution. The sorting hat is essentially a filter, used to place you into one of four houses, each with their own unique personallity traits. To maintain authenticity to the books and films, a visit was made to the author's website, locating the list of traits for each house.
| House Colors | Personality Traits |
|---|---|
| red, gold | courage, bravery, nerve, chivalry |
| yellow, black | hard work, patience, justice, loyalty |
| blue, bronze | intelligence, creativity, learning, wit |
| green, silver | ambition, cunning, leadership, resourcefulness |
The sorting process begins by asking asking if you match one of these traits, picked at random. If you do, a point is added to that house to mark that as a potential solution. This continues for the first seven questions, afterwhich, the house totals are checked after each question, to see which one has more points than the rest. Once that occurs, the hat will announce your chosen house, the one with the most points, magically coinciding with your personality type of course!
Some modifications were added, making the experience more entertaining, especially if used during a party where many are present, anxiously waiting to determine their own house membership.
- The number of personality traits were increased from 16 to 80, ie. there are now 20 traits per house to choose from.
- Once a trait has been asked, it won't be asked again. Why should it be, since the hat already knows the answer?
- Comments are given after each response, to reveal what the hat is thinking, and that some answers were quite obvious!
- If any traits are confusing, not to worry. Just answer No and wait for the next question. There's others you're sure to know.
- Only the traits which you confirmed with a Yes are considered, to determine the best house for you at the school of magic.
- Have fun, and don't let on about the use of magic used to sort you. Just say it was just a clever program, nothing more.