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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.
Wow, time really flies! It seems like just yesterday we were eating turkey and watching the leaves change. Where did December go?! Like it or not, 2012 is here and with it comes one of the craziest days here at SparkFun - yes, we're talking about Free Day!
Free Day 2012 is a week from today - that means on January 11th, 2012, you will have a chance at winning a $100 share of a pot of $200,000 worth of SparkFun credit. Here are the basics of Free Day:
The Rules: The give away starts at 9AM MST and is limited to $100 per person. Each winner will get a gift code that can be used at SparkFun within 60 days.
Stipulations: In order to participate, you must register an account on sparkfun.com, and use a modern browser with JavaScript and cookies enabled. (Sorry, Lynx!)
The System: We're doing away with the quiz system of 2011 and trying to return to a give-away system that is as simple as possible, but can handle the load of the Free Day crowd. The system will randomly give away the 2,000 gift codes (2000 * $100 = $200,000) throughout the day. For example, if we set up a 7 hour giveaway window, we should see a gift given away about every 12 seconds. We will allow people to try for the prize as many times as they'd like, but we will have a basic system to prove you're not a script.
That pretty much sums it up! If past Free Days are any example, Free Day 2012 will be an intense and fun day. Remember the event starts at 9 AM on January 11th. Best of luck to everyone! Cheers!
HAHA. Just misread your banner up top for site downtime. Thought it said the 11th.... :) :)
please add pst to the when it starts.
That's 8 AM Pacific, 10 AM Central, 11 AM Eastern, and 4 PM Greenwich Mean Time.
how bout unix timestamp? 1326272400
I don't think there is any other unit of time less meaningful than a UNIX timestamp. :-P
How about swatch internet time?
Star date?
-310970.8561020036
I think you made that Stardate up... There must be a web site that will calculate the current Stardate. Yup! www.trekguide.com/Stardates.htm#Today
Today's Stardate is 65474.2
Freeday starts on Stardate 65493.9
Yes, I'm totally a dork. What's your point?
Negative-issue stardates are used in the 23rd century to refer to events prior to 2162.
Source: http://starchive.cs.umanitoba.ca/?stardates/part4
I think Teslafan was out-dorked ;) This is awesome btw! :D
Ok, I must be totally obsessed with free day or something, because last night I dreamed it was thursday the 12th and I forgot all about free day. I woke up and went to check my ipod to see what day it was.. Thanks for the sleepless nights, sparkfun!!! :(
I did that last year and missed it. FML.
Free Day! Awesome! I just got an Arduino for Xmas and am a total electronics Noob. Have been putting together my parts list ever since. The funny thing is I bought my daughter an Arduino starter kit for Xmas and my wife bought the same for me! She couldn't help but noticed how much I wanted one too!
Looking forward to Free Day, whether I score on a coupon code or not!
There is no age limit, correct? My 11 year old is looking for his own Sparkfun cash, and wants to try on his own.
Correct! Anyone with a Sparkfun account can try for it.
It's more likely that it's per user account, otherwise that would, as you say, upset people on large LANs, WANs and VPNs...
Question - are you going to restrict to one gift per IP? I've got a few coworkers that I've told about this and we'll all likely be trying to get through.
Smart phone, home boy.
Yeah I tried that last year. Didn't work out so well for me. I spent about an hour and a half trying to get onto their site from my cell and got nowhere.
Free Day is my birthday this year? How thoughtful of you, Sparkfun.
Now I just have to win?
Today is my Birthday!!! =D
Happy Birthday! Me tooo!
happy birthday!
It's my 17th anniversary. So, um, SparkFun... Could you please have the window end before, say, 6:30pm CST? Otherwise, this might be my last anniversary. :)
Way to go guys!!! Electronic Design published an article on February 22, 2012 about DIY Electronics Kits, where 80% of the article talks about sparkfun. Thank you guys for your hard work, to help us, Hobbyists and Engineers get back to the roots of electronics.
Congrats!!!
Whoa! How did i manage to miss this? o.O
consider adding the following rule:
"By participating in Free Day, you forfeit all rights to complain--on any medium--if you didn't win anything."
and call it the 'No Winning, No Whining Rule'
:)
Good luck everyone; see you at the checkout queue.
So all I have to do is login and hope I get randomly picked?!?
pretty much that and refreshing a page as fast as you can read if you won or not...
refresh my account page or the main page while I'm logged in?
I think the main page. or they might put out a special freeday page. no one is really sure yet! :)
It may be too late for this year, but the "prove you're not a bot" part sounds like a job for recaptcha (and they are free).
recaptcha's always mess with me. I get upside down words, random greek characters, math symbols, super and sub scripts, foreign words that are mashed together and unreadable, cursive, etc. I always get the worst recaptchas.
I don't understand what you are supposed to do to enter... (so im already a registered user so what do i do? )
Show up at our website at 9 AM Mountain Time on Jan 11th. That's the first and most important step!
Do you allow manual entries?
I'm not sure if I have understood how it works. In order to participate you only have to visit the webpage (and be pretty lucky) or placing a new order during that time?
Also, a suggestion to make it easier as you sell worldwide, how about a clock showing the time left for the free day to start? That would definitely be much clear and it is an exciting banner to see every day when we open your web :)
Since they don't have one here I created my own timer with some help of google and a guy with a website called 7is7 :) http://bit.ly/ywiIYa
Man, I LOVE Free Day. I sat there for HOURS last year, trying to burn down the SparkFun data center, and got a cool 10$ out of the whole deal. I don't think it gets any better.
Someone cue the whiners and sore losers to enter from stage left.
Missing school this day... please do it on a weekend or something!
Really no Lynx, mann that's my primary browser.
I also have a secret for winning that requires no work from me. Muhahahaha
hire someone else? ;)
dang it.
I will be at CES!!!!!!!
How does it give away the gift codes? By reloading sparkfun.com?
Yes, how exactly?
Dang! I read it was the 12th so I asked for that day off..
Another freeday missed.
I thought it was the 12th too! But it's at 5pm here so no worries for me. If you asked a day off for a (small) chance on winning 100$ on electronics it's a good idea to apply for a different job with better wages on the 12th. :)
Nope. We're keeping it under our hats until the day of. It's nothing terribly fancy.
Ok.
I was worried that there was a whole SparkFun Secret Society that operates much like the Free(day) Masons, or (LED) Illuminati.
A gentle request, please?
Could the method of trying, whatever it turns out to be, be generally compatible with surfing the website, skimming datasheets, reading tutorials, and drinking in the wonder that is sparkfun.com? That would make it time well spent!
I would be tempted to participate even if I had to just keep clicking a picture of the Michelin Man, but I'd rather not feel too much like a lab rat trained in how to get a piece of cheese...
Thats what made last year so cool.. chatting with other freeloaders trying to figure out the right technical answers, surfing the tutorials, etc.. It actually got me interested in some new stuff to spend my free money on.. Obviously I'm going to participate this year, because $100 is $100, but if the object is just to refresh a page, I'm wondering if we're going to just be stress-testing some cache somewhere, or maybe their internet connection, rather than the real processing power of their server farm.. Oh well, I KNOW they know what they want to accomplish, and I'm happy to take the money either way..
Thanks for the kind words regarding the site in general.
Sadly, the constraints we've set ourselves for this time around (low overhead and simplicity of implementation) have dictated a fairly lab-rat-like experience.
This is always an experiment; next year might well be more interactive, depending on how this goes.
If you aren't sure what 9AM MST is in your place, use wolframalpha :) http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=9AM+January+11+2012+MST (it gives you a nice clock with the time in your place) Or check this countdown (correct me if I'm wrong): http://bit.ly/ywiIYa
LIFESAVER !!!! Excellent...
I guess all I will see this Free Day is 'comp01:~#' :-(
so thats 11 eastern right?
Sounds awesome - assuming Sparkfun's website won't be 503 Unavailable the entire time. :)
No, I want to see 504, 505, and a 410 because they are funny.
418!!
I've amended Emcee Grady's post with a few extra stipulations. If you have any further questions, ask away; I may or may not provide useful answers, depending.
How could you deny people who use Lynx?
Malice aforethought.
How many registered users are eligible? Just trying to work out minute to minute probability.
By Free Day, I expect we will be a bit shy of 300000 registered accounts. This is probably not a very useful number, since many are dormant.
This is the day before my gcse, and instead of revising like mad I'm going to be sitting in front of a computer refreshing every 5 seconds..
Keep your priorities straight: This is pretty awesome, but it's just $100. Pass your exam, and you can have your own, personal free day! Well, it won't be free, but you'll have money you wouldn't have had if you'd spent the day refreshing Sparkfun.com...
Seriously, check the opportunity cost. How many of us could work for 5-10 hours on Free Day, make $100, and buy stuff on a less busy day? I suspect quite a few. And yet, we'll be here.
And how many will be at work getting paid trying for free stuff?
I won't be getting paid because I have to be in school so I plan on going to the purpose room at 11 and staying for study hall and lunch. Then I'm racing home after school lets out and trying some more (assuming I haven't already won anything)!!!
I'm so excited to be able to participate in free day this year!
I suppose you're right, revision it is :/