Sparkfun Announces Free Day 2012

November 23, 2011 by Mike Szczys 22 Comments

We got word that it was coming, and now SparkFun has just announced that Free Day 2012 will take place on January 11th. This is the third time around for the purveyor of goodies for electronic enthusiasts. Each year the offer is a little different, but like in the past you stand to get $100 of free stuff!

The first Free Day back in 2010 saw a lot of hammering which left the SparkFun servers a steaming pile of slag. In 2011 they bolstered their bandwidth handling and tried a quiz-based system for the giveaway. This time around they’re not asking questions but leaving the awards up to chance. Each person has the opportunity to win a $100 credit during the contest window (not specifically announced yet, but definitely starting at 9AM MST on 1/11/2012). There will be some type of bot monitoring, but other than that you can try to claim your credit as many times as you want, with the awards being randomly assigned to a pool of entrants. We recommend you keep an eye on their announcements for more details, but we’ll try to keep this thread updated as we hear more.

Not wanting to wait that long for your components? Don’t miss some of the sales that are going on over this Holiday weekend.

[via Reddit]

SparkFun Free Day 2011: Now With Gambling

November 24, 2010 by Mike Szczys 52 Comments

SparkFun has just announced a Free Day for 2011. Last year was the first time they decided to give away $100,000 in the form of $100 credits that melted down their servers and made the rest of the world (you know, the non-geek sort) ask what SparkFun was when it started trending on Twitter, Google, and every other form of digital communication.

Well, they’re doing it again this year, albeit quite differently. Mark your calendar for Thursday, January 13th at 9am Mountain Standard Time. But it’s not as simple as having your cart pre-filled and trying to bum rush the checkout pages. Now you’ve got options; take a loyalty payout of $10 for each year that has passed since you registered an account with them, or gamble for a $100 credit. The latter involves answering ten questions, rewarded with $10 for each correct answer and penalized $3 for each wrong answer. If you don’t finish all ten before the money runs out you get zip.

There’s several bits of good news here. First, they just picked up a new rack of servers which should help keep the website from crashing. Secondly, the prize money has been ramped up by %50 to a total of $150,000. And finally, if you choose to answer the trivia questions, $2 is being donated to charity for each correct answer. So study up on your electronic theory and you can help others while trying to help yourself.

[Thanks Diego]

Hackaday Links: Sunday January 24

January 24, 2010 by Jakob Griffith 16 Comments

Everyone Remembers Free day right? [The Ideanator’s] Bus Pirate came in such a nice red box – he decided to make it his permanent case.

[Chico] is in the middle of making a CNC, but decided to make some music with the steppers in the mean time.

What looks like an old wooden box is actually [Ludvig’s] super sweet retro arcade cabinet. Complete with a giant emergency stop red button.

Who says Legos are dead? [Carl] used them to create a simple and cheap diffraction grating projector. Including video!

[Torchris] used an Ethernet shield exactly as it was designed, sending data over Ethernet. Still a nice hack for those needing help working with Ethernet shields and Arduino.

Finally [Robert] let us know about a friends Arduino Binary Clock. But we think his elegant use of tape and a sand blaster to engrave glass is cooler.

Free Day Recap Video And Book Recommendation

January 17, 2010 by Mike Szczys 21 Comments

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mgFayRF4M2c]

SparkFun’s free day came and went as entertainment for some and an infuriating event for others. They filmed some video in their office during the madness to give us a look at how it went on their end. We find it amusing that Solarbotics, one of their competitors, sent them flowers with a card reading “Rest in Peace SparkFun”.

According to [Nate’s] original post, the concept of free day was inspired by reading [Chris Anderson’s] book “Free: The Future of a Radical Price”. We recently finished reading this wonderful work and we’re making it our next book recommendation. [Chris] is editor-in-chief of Wired and has had a ring-side seat as the digital world rose around us. He takes a historical look at what the price of free really means, defining cost by adding more terms like Gratis and Libre to the mix. If you have a good handle on the companies that have defined the 21st Century business model so far you wont’ be able to put this book down.

Now, we should mention something that is remotely related to hacking since we try to do that sort of thing around here. The SparkFun post also reminds those folks lucky enough to get a $100 credit to chronicle and share their projects. We’d love to see them too so get your projects written up and send us the dirty details.

SparkFun’s Free Day Is Nearly Upon Us…

January 7, 2010 by Nick Caiello 624 Comments

As I’m sure many of you already now, today is January 7th. While that might not have any real significance normally, today this means that our favorite hobby supplier, SparkFun, is giving away up to $100,000 of electronic goodness. We know we have our shopping carts filled to the brim, and we’re sure that most of you do too. With the start of Free Day being roughly 10 minutes away, we recommend that everyone man their shopping carts…. This should be interesting…

$100 Free From Your Favorite Hobby Supplier!

November 24, 2009 by Jakob Griffith 88 Comments

We were wary at first when the email came in with the headline “SparkFun is having a free day” and figured surly this is in relation to recent events? But no, after 7 years of loyal customers, SparkFun is simply giving back to the community.

It’s interesting to think that without their services, we wouldn’t have some of the amazing hacks we introduce every day. Such as the DIY mood lamp, or Cell phone alt-variometer, or Arduino iPod remote control. And their free day will allow some disadvantaged hackers the ability to finally flex that muscle sitting between their shoulders. What do you plan to make?

Mark your calendars folks, On January the 7th 2010 SparkFun is giving every household a $100 (until they reach $100k), if that’s not an incentive to wake up early, what is?

As a side note, do you think we’ve had enough posts about SparkFun lately?

[Thanks Diego]