When/where: 9:00 am MST Sparkfun.com
What: Win $100 of a total $200,000 giveaway
"Well the time is near - tomorrow at 9 AM Mountain Time, SparkFun is hosting the third edition of Free Day. This year we are giving away $200,000 worth of $100 credits to the SparkFun website. Show up here at 9 AM Mountain Time on January 11th, 2012 to try your hand at winning! Want to know more? Watch the video below:
Here's a little more information:
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.
Free Day is always an intense and interesting time! We wish all of you the best of luck in getting your share of the prize! See you tomorrow!"
Comments
Captchas must be nearly unreadable, otherwise a machine is going to do a better job than a human.
Anyway, I was waiting for an install to finish (you know, too short to do something productive but too long not to do something unproductive) and had to try only ~20 before a win came up. Sheer luck. :)
Of course I'm biased now, but I think the idea of trading time for more chances isn't half bad.
For sure, it`s still a cool thing to do, it`s just this captcha thing was no fun and the work hours thing does not help. I hope the format will be different next year. No matter, SF still rocks.
I spent 45 minutes getting frustrated at "Captcha"...probably have to see the eye doctor because of the strain!
Still, it was fun. (didn't get anything, but I tried)
Maybe next year I'll get my six yr old daughter to help me with the "Captcha" part.
The amount given away rose by $8000 in the 20 minutes I played. The best captcha readers probably don't speak english.
can't complain too much, after all it is free money. though I did not like the luck aspect, last year I could at least get something. This year it was a few too many frustrating hours for nothing. Still a cool thing for a company to do.
It was pretty lame, and it`s during work hours so I could only try during lunch. No much spark, not much fun!
Yeah... the current "Captcha" system many people use is so frustratingly unreadable. Most of the time, if a site uses that Captcha system, I take the exit and won't even register.
I didn't try this out, but I feel your pain. I'm getting tired with some of these tests that I can barely make out. The ones on Filesonic are terrible!
Unfortunately I had to give up, I couldn't stand typeing things I cold barely read. I'll try next year.