This is EPIC!

quote:

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You can blame it on Chris Anderson's book Free. After reading his book, I started kicking around the idea of what we can do that's 'free'. Sure, we have free bits (open-source hardware designs, available code, etc.), but we don't have free physical widgets. Now combine that with our love of creating shear havoc (AVC, C&D letter, Portable Rotary Phone), and you get Free Day.

Nobody gives away a free physical thing. There's always a catch. So up front: you have to pay shipping. Other than that, it's open season.

* $100 max per household
* You pay shipping
* Limit of $100,000 in giveaways for the day
* Starts 9AM MST January 7th, 2010
* Ends 11PM MST January 7th, 2010 (or when we hit $100k, whichever comes first)
* Rainchecks for popular items will be allowed

Why are we doing this? It's not that I want to create hell for the shipping, production, and the IT teams at SparkFun. There's a multitude of reasons.

First and foremost, we want to give back. We've had a stellar year in 2009, and it's all because of you. So please, have a beer (or a Stepper Motor Driver) on us.

Second: We wish we could sponsor more groups but we don't have a sound way of selecting appropriate projects. Because we can't afford to say yes to everyone, we have to say no to everyone. It pains us every time we have to do it. So this is a way for us to evenly enable all the students and great minds of the world to pickup a $100 worth of free gear. Go for it!

Third: Free Day will possibly create a maelstrom of site traffic, the likes of which our servers have not seen. At the beginning of December, 2009, SparkFun will be graduating out of its high-chair and moving into a server cluster. We are excited to have the breathing room, and Free Day will help us evaluate just how much breathing room we're getting. We'll do everything in our power to keep the site up but please understand that the site may go down.

Fourth: We turn 7 years old! SparkFun is now over 70 employees and is the ripe old age of 49 (in business and dog years). We'd like to celebrate our birthday with a party.

More nitty gritty details:

* There is no special code to type in. But you get only one order on Free Day, so spend it well!
* Only one $100 credit per household. We ask that you respect this limit and don't try to abuse this gift.
* There is no minimum or maximum order. You can spend more than $100, the balance of which will be charged to your method of payment.
* Only Credit Card and Paypal orders will be eligible for the $100 credit. We don't want to have people tying up inventory with POs, wire transfers, checks in the mail, or lost faxes.
* You will see whether or not your order qualifies for a credit in the checkout process.
* Free Day does not apply to our distributors. Sorry!
* Gift Cards cannot be bought on Free Day.
* Every order isn't going to ship on Free Day, or for a few days after. We've got extra tape guns on hand, but please be patient and give us some time to catch up!
* We are ratcheting up inventory for Free Day, but backorders (a.k.a. rainchecks) are allowed on most items (some items we simply can't get anymore). We'll get you your goodies just as soon as we can get them back in stock.

As we usually do things here at SparkFun, these rules are open for revision. We may need to tweak them as our astute users point out how silly we are. If we have to make any changes to the rules, we'll let you all know here on our homepage. So mark January 7th, 2010 on your calendars - it's Free Day!

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sweet. thanks for the post aaron.
on a side note chances are ill be ordering the same thing ie xbee
_________________
Remember to trust me, I am an Engineer.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rp8hvyjZWHs

$100 an order by 100,000 thats only 1000 orders. youd wanna be lucky
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www.demon50s.com - Minimoto parts
http://www.youtube.com/user/HyzerGlen - Videoooozzz

That's still a lot of chances for free stuff!
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https://www.halfdonethings.com/

Wooo. Wonder how quick it'll hit 100K
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( •_•)

( •_•)>⌐■-■

(⌐■_■)

YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH

not quite as good as spakfun free day but still useful if what you want is listed

from Pololu
"Happy Thanksgiving to from Pololu Robotics and Electronics!

To celebrate some of the great products we've introduced this year (and our popular 3pi from last year), we are having our first "Black Friday" sale. You can use the following coupons to save up to 60% on selected Pololu products from Thursday, November 26 through Monday, November 30, 2009.

BFSVP - Get one of #1325 Orangutan SVP-324 Robot Controller (assembled) at $49.95 (save $50 off the retail price).

BFMAESTRO - Get one of #1350 Micro Maestro 6-channel USB Servo Controller (assembled) at $9.95 (save $15 off the retail price).

BFQIK - Get one of #1110 Pololu Qik 2s9v1 Dual Serial Motor Controller at $9.95 (save $15 off of the retail price).

BFJRK - Get one of #1392 Pololu Jrk 21v3 USB Motor Controller with Feedback at $19.95 (save $30 off the retail price).

BFENCODER - Get one of #1218 Pololu 42x19mm Wheel and Encoder Set at $24.95 (save $15 off of the retail price).

BF3PI - Get one of #975 Pololu 3pi Robot at $49.95 (save $50 off the retail price). This offer is available to the first 20 customers who use this coupon. (makes a great gift for that budding roboticist on your Christmas list)

ELEKTOR1209 - Get a free copy of Elektor magazine's December 2009 issue, while supplies last (save $7.95 off the newsstand price). This offer is only available to orders shipped to the USA or Canada.

These coupons become active at 12:00 AM PST (8:00 AM GMT) on Thursday, November 26, and they can be used on back-orders if we run out of available stock. Multiple coupons can be used on a single order. Note that our 3pi coupon will expire after it has been used 20 times; all other coupons have an unlimited number of uses, though each coupon only applies to a single unit per order.

To use these coupons, you must make your purchase directly from our web site (www.pololu.com). You can enter the coupons at the bottom of the shopping cart page. Make sure to click the "update cart" button after each coupon you enter.
"
http://forum.pololu.com/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=2111
_________________
Remember to trust me, I am an Engineer.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rp8hvyjZWHs

Pololu emailed me that this morning, was hoping they would do a special on the B-328 controllers
_________________
https://www.halfdonethings.com/

Those 1000 orders will go in seconds still worth a try though and is pretty epic.

Steve
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Steven Martin
Twisted Constructions
http://www.botbitz.com

Alrighty spark fun'ers, just a quick reminder about Free Day.
The flood gates open @ 2:00AM Friday January 8th Aussie time (9:00AM Thursday 7th MST).
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https://www.halfdonethings.com/

Any idea whether you need to start with a fresh cart or can you just click submit at 2:00AM?
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Steven Martin
Twisted Constructions
http://www.botbitz.com

According to comments on the Free Day page, it looks like it's just a case of clicking the submit button after 2AM.
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https://www.halfdonethings.com/

Hmmm I hope I have internet that day.

Stupid moving
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Steven Martin
Twisted Constructions
http://www.botbitz.com

Hit a LAN cafe, pretty sure the one in Queen St runs 24/7
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https://www.halfdonethings.com/

so hard to work out what to limit an oder to.
_________________
Remember to trust me, I am an Engineer.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rp8hvyjZWHs

Anyone manage to get a Free day order through?
I failed (iFail) after bout 40mins of time outs and slow reloads on my iphone before falling asleep

$100k went in 1hr:44mins. That's pretty slow compared to what I was thinking, but the massive server load slowed it down a fair bit.
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https://www.halfdonethings.com/