GET FREE STUFF FROM SPARKFUN

Sparkfun.com is doing something truly awe inspiring, ballsy, and downright awesome. On Januarary 7th, 2010 they are giving away free stuff. This is a great way to get me hooked to their goods. In the meantime be sure to support them by buying their components and helping yourself by creating some kick-ass props.

Snipped from Sparkfun.com:

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!