Have a road trip planned this summer? Want to keep the kids from driving you crazy as you drive to Walley World? How about playing the ol’ standard License Plate game but with a twist: License Plate Bingo!

Run this code a couple of times and print out the chart on separate pieces of paper. There are your bingo cards. Give one to each kid and/or adult. Now, hit the road! If you see a license plate from, say, Texas, and you have a “Texas” square, mark it off on your bingo card. If you can mark off a row horizontally, vertically, or diagonally, you win!

Step 1: Import your packages

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import matplotlib.style as style
import numpy as np
import random

%matplotlib inline
style.use('seaborn-poster')

Step 2: Get your State names

# compliments of this forum: https://gist.github.com/JeffPaine/3083347
states = ["AL - Alabama", "AK - Alaska", "AZ - Arizona", "AR - Arkansas", "CA - California", "CO - Colorado",
"CT - Connecticut", "DC - Washington DC", "DE - Deleware", "FL - Florida", "GA - Georgia",
"HI - Hawaii", "ID - Idaho", "IL - Illinios", "IN - Indiana", "IA - Iowa",
"KS - Kansas", "KY - Kentucky", "LA - Louisiana", "ME - Maine", "MD - Maryland",
"MA - Massachusetts", "MI - Michigan", "MN - Minnesota", "MS - Mississippi",
"MO - Missouri", "MT - Montana", "NE - Nebraska", "NV - Nevada", "NH - New Hampshire",
"NJ - New Jersey", "NM - New Mexico", "NY - New York", "NC - North Carolina",
"ND - North Dakota", "OH - Ohio", "OK - Oklahoma", "OR - Oregon", "PA - Pennsylvania",
"RI - Rhode Island", "SC - South Carolina", "SD - South Dakota", "TN - Tennessee",
"TX - Texas", "UT - Utah", "VT - Vermont", "VA - Virgina", "WA - Washington", "WV - West Virginia",
"WI - Wisconsin", "WY - Wyoming"]
state_names = [s.split('-')[1].strip() for s in states]

Step 3: Generate your bingo card

random.shuffle(state_names)
rowlen= 4  # make any size card you'd like

fig = plt.figure()
ax = fig.gca()
ax.set_xticks(np.arange(0, rowlen + 1))
ax.set_yticks(np.arange(0, rowlen + 1))
plt.grid()

for i, word in enumerate(state_names[:rowlen**2]):
    x = (i % rowlen) + 0.4
    y = int(i / rowlen) + 0.5
    ax.annotate(word, xy=(x, y), xytext=(x, y))
    
plt.show()
Python Bingo, FTW!

Grab my full source code here.