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SparkFun will be closed on Tuesday, November 5th to support our team in being able to go out and vote! Orders placed after 2 pm MT Monday, November 4th will ship on Wednesday, November 6th. Thanks for your patience and understanding.
We are going to leave this post up for another day (possibly two - depends on the number of responses). If you're interested in being part of this documentary, let us know by emailing us at myfreeday@sparkfun.com. For those of you who have already responded - thanks! We will let you know ASAP if we are able to come visit you! Cheers!
Free Day is quickly approaching! In case you missed the announcement, Free Day 2012 will be on Wednesday January 11th, 2012 starting at 9AM Mountain Time. We will be increasing the pool to $200,000 this year. We will have some sort of a system to verify you're not a robot and if you're the lucky person that minute, you'll win a $100 gift code. That's the gist. If you want to read the rest of the rules, go here. Today, however, we want to talk about an important idea we are hoping to do this year centered around Free Day. That's right - The Free Day Documentary.
The past couple years, people have expressed interest in a "Free Day Documentary" and this year, we want to make it happen. But we need your help! Our plan is to send a few crews of people around the country (in addition to right here at SparkFun HQ) to capture various groups' Free Day experience. We are thinking universities, hacker spaces, companies - anywhere that people have gathered in the name of getting free SparkFun gear! We would fly out to your location, spend some time getting to know you and conducting some interviews, and then try to capture your experience as you battle the mobs of people vying for a $100 credit on Free Day.
How does your group celebrate Free Day?
If you think your class/group/friends/company/whoever might be interested in being part of this, please let us know. Email us ASAP at myfreeday@sparkfun.com. We have a limited number of crews heading out, so the sooner you get your entry in, the better chance we'll come out to pay you a visit (swag in haul, of course). Our goal is to try to plan where we will go this week, so kind of think of that as your "deadline." In your email, please let us know what your group is, how many people will be there, and why we should come visit you! You can send us just text, a PowerPoint, Video - whatever will best help us understand why we should choose you - be creative! Know that we will want to follow you around, meet your buddies, and generally interrupt your every day life (in a good way of course).
So please get your entries in now! The sooner the better and we'll need enough interest to make this documentary a possibility. Again, email us at myfreeday@sparkfun.com. Hope to see you soon!
When someone wins you should chuck in a T-Shirt with your 'Something Broke' 404 error page on it with their order.
LIKE!
Everyone is talking about Free Day and no one talks about Noyce? I am disappoint.
You're right. We wouldn't be sending these messages, Spark Fun might be Garage Fun, & our lives would be much slower and duller if it weren't for him and the 20 or 30 people who led in both the development of the computers and the IC's that enabled them to be so cheap, so low power, so small & so fast that the progress in science , technology, and hobby fun is accelerating at an unbelievable pace.
Any chance you guys can whip up "mobile friendly" version of the Free Day page?
Just to make life a little bit better for those who can't be at a computer and want to sneakily participate when their supervisors aren't watching too close.
Have people take their own video and submit it to possibly be used.
...on the assumption that the site still works after Free Day
It'll just be me, in my basement, lots of clicking and cussing - but you're welcome if you bring beer and snacks...
Let me know if you're gonna show - I'll put on my formal bunny slippers.
I'll be wearing my formal mud-stained AVC 2011 shirt (never play goalie in soccer wearing a white shirt).
It'll just be me, in my basement, lots of clicking and cussing - but you're welcome if you can entertain my grandson who will be bugging me if he's around.
How about I just keep my webcam on and send you the files? ;)
Northstreetlabs.com wants to be part of this!
But, no where mentioned where to click and which page?? I am sorry, if I am so dumb :-(
But, no where mentioned where to click and which page?? I am sorry, if I am so dumb :-(
If you go to the home page on Free Day, there will be a clear link to follow.
"...if you're the lucky person that minute, you'll win a $100 gift code."
Hmmm, $200,000 with one lucky person winning $100 each minute = 33 1/3 hours...
So, "Free 1.388 Days" ??
It's once every 12 or so seconds, actually. Most information can be found here.
I believe most people assume a 15 second delay between wins, which gives this an 8 hour life span.
Hopefully. Timezones.
hey i have a question? do you get a code? and once you get it can you use it whenever you want, or do you have to use it right away?
Yes, you get a code, and you'll have 60 days to spend it.
How do I qualify for the $100 credit? Just keep pressing refresh on the Sparkfun site? And if I am the lucky one, will I see a gift code?
Essentially, yes. This time apparently there's no skill required and no learning involved. You just need to be lucky. Or maybe you just need spend 7 hours pressing Refresh for nothing.
I still think they would be better varying the prize value, that way more people could get 'something' at least - even T-shirts as an alternate prize would be better than nothing - just my two bobs worth.
essentially. read all about it here
Lovely! cant wait to get my goods this year, but to be honest im not sure how well the documentary will go, mostly just recording people endlessly hitting refresh until it connects long enough to log in, then repeat until either magic coupon code appears, or the pot runs out :D but with the random giveaway at least it wont all be gone in two hours this time :D
It'll probably be more than just F5ing if it's a group. I'll bet that some people hold contests to see who is able to access Sparkfun.com first! ;D
I'd like to see someone stick a Temperature sensor on their Router :-)
Servo motor + arm, duct-taped over F5 key... Yea? Or will there be some sort of captcha? No fun..
No Captcha! That would defeat the point... they WANT us to chain-page refresh their site into the Stone Age.
And I will not disappoint!
i think you are right, and thats why we are asking mainly for groups of people who might be getting together at work or school or hacker buddies. But, if there is a individual who will be doing it that might have a really good story to tell about how their FreeDay went last year - we would be interested in hearing it too. We do want to find different types of places and people who we might be able to make into a story.