Have You Designed a Cool Gadget Recently?

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 [email protected]. 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.