If you have created an interesting and useful gadget, the editors at Design News want to know about it. And if we publish information about your device, you get a cool $500 to buy stuff for your home lab, put in savings, or use however you want.
Previous Gadget Freak designs include a gopher chaser, a telescope clock drive, a holiday lights retractor, a Christmas tree light sequencer, a wind generator, an automated pet feeder, a rocket launcher, and a tracking Nerf gun to scare nighttime critters out of a garden. Your gadget or device could join this illustrious list.
Here's the deal: Your original Gadget Freak submission must include a description of your gadget and how it works, photos of your gadget, a photo of you, schematic and mechanical drawings, and a bill of materials (BOM). If you use a programmable device such as an FPGA or microcontroller, please send us the code, too. A short video is also required and can help the judges understand a gadget. Because Allied Electronics sponsors the Gadget Freak program, some of the items in your BOM should appear in Allied's catalog. The Gadget Freak committee discourages using odd or hard-to-find parts, such as a crankshaft from a 1948 Ford or a surplus circuit board from a NASA project.
To submit a project or ask about Gadget Freak in general, contact me at jontitus@comcast.net. Please put "Gadget Freak" in your email subject line.
The editors of Design News have handpicked your favorite Gadget Freak cases from over the years, bringing them together in a dynamic digital edition, complete with videos, which you can view here.
This sounds great, mrdon - looking forward to seeing what you come up with!
Please keep the "rules" in mind - we need a clear photo of the gadget, as well as a clear photo of you with the gadget. We also need a hi-resolution video, and some of the parts used in the gadget must be available through Allied Electronics, the sponsor of our Gadget Freak section. Please include the Allied part number and a link to the part on the Allied site.
Finally, we like to see projects that are unique to Design News. Of course, they can be published elsewhere after they appear on our site or in our magazine.
Hi Jon, Wonderful! I have a couple of gadgets I've been developing in the area of Educational Wearable Electronics. Time to write them up for Gadget Freak!!!
Hi, Chris. Sorry for your frustration with links. I get frustrated by broken links, too. My colleagues and I try to include complete links, so even if a page has moved, people can still go to the source and search for the information they seek. Unfortunately, companies change information on their sites, companies go out of business or no longer stock parts, etc. A while ago when Design News changed to a new "platform" for content, quite a bit of information about some Gadget Freak projects got lost during file transfers.
If you want something specific, let me know and I'll try to find a link that works.
"You are not authorized to view this page. The Web server you are attempting to reach has a list of IP addresses that are not allowed to access the Web site, and the IP address of your browsing computer is on this list."
Links that get you this message just stops one in their tracks. Why look at other entries ?
Don't post links off your web site that you don't have control over. If Design News is not going to maintain the date on your site, just forget about posting the article.
Dead links make me just PASS on other articles that I might have been interested in, but don't want to investigate now because I am sure there will be other links that are now dead or not accessible.
I have tries from three different IP addresses, same massage. Case 167 has these bad links.
Yes, you must, Cabe. The Gadget Freaks section gives people an opportunity to show off something they created so others can duplicate it, make modifications on their own, or find inspiration in it that leads to something new. So in effect, it's an open-source project and we do need schematic diagrams, code listings, and other backup materials.
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