By now, you are probably used to having your daily reading peppered with “best-of” lists of things to buy, places to see and finery to wear. But before you let yourself become hype-hardened, learn about a giveaway right after the holiday season. A gift for yourself (at long last!) and completely free for the curious and the technologically inclined.
From January 9 to 12, 2018, no less than 10,000 Arduino Uno Rev3 boards will be made available absolutely free to CES 2018 visitors. What better way is there to rid yourself of the post-holiday blues?
Giveaway guide
Here’s how you can grab yourself one: At the CES show on said dates, walk over to the Arrow and Indiegogo Booth #51033 in the heart of Eureka Park at the Sands Expo and get your badge scanned. That’s all! Arduino Uno is the board that marked the release of Arduino Software (IDE) version 1.0 and has now evolved to newer reference versions. It is an ATmega328P microcontroller-based board with 14 digital I/O pins, six analog inputs, a 16-MHz quartz crystal, a USB connection, a power jack, an ICSP header and a reset button. All you need to do is to connect it to a computer with a USB cable and you are good to go, building anything from a simple robot to a home heating control system.
Your freebies don’t end there. Upon getting your badge scanned at the Arrow booth, you’ll get a code in your email to redeem an Arduino accessory from Arrow.com.
Remember, while Arrow’s giveaway stock is a whopping 10,000 boards, the 2017 CES saw over 180,000 attendees. So get there early.
Immersive stories & consultation
If you’ve been to CES before, you would recall feeling like a kid in a candy store. They had over 4,000 exhibiting companies in 2017 spread over about 2.6 million net square feet. CES 2018 is likely to be no different in sheer choice of products, technologies and vendors.
In a single booth representing 3.8 billion components and 125,000 manufacturers and commercial customers, Arrow will help manage those choices so that you are not overwhelmed as you take your prototype to production.
They are setting up an immersive experience for you, powered by touch-sensitive displays and 3D projection mapping so that you can interact with stories about successful products that went from ideation to creation, including:
• the WaterBot, the world’s first smart water quality monitor that streams data to your phone and, if you like, anonymously to the OpenWaterQuality.org database
• the STEMosaur, a build-it-yourself customizable smart toy that turns play into education. It tells jokes, provides answers to questions across a variety of subjects and allows kids to code custom content.
A common ingredient in the success of these products is the Arrow Certification Program, which brings advice for innovators from technical experts at Arrow and Indiegogo.
The Engineering Zone at Booth #51033 will showcase more products from Indiegogo entrepreneurs with Arrow Certified Technology on hand to share their experience as well as words of advice. In fact, Arrow is pulling out all stops to help you out by arranging demos of the latest technology and free one-on-one consultations with tech industry experts from Arrow, IBM, Analog Devices and TE Connectivity.
Don’t forget to bring your bill of materials (BoMs) or prototype for Arrow engineers to review so you can get your technology Arrow Certified. To learn more about Arrow & Indiegogo at CES 2018, visit www.arrow.com/arduino.
See CES 2018 Giveaway Rules and Details.