pouët.net

Inspired by 'Craft' http://pouet.net/prod.php?which=50141 and now this:
http://www.1bitsymphony.com/

Is anyone doing $-limit compos at parties yet? Like a $64 total limit in electronics or whatever, new from a place like mouser, purchasing your components in singles (no fair buying 1000 of them to get that 20% discount on the one you enter :D
Obviously the easiest is music... write some code for an arduino board and you're done... but it would be more interesting as the price point pushes down past the level of webmonkey accessible things like that, and then even down out of the range of the cheapest programmable microcontrollers. $1 or 64 cents.

It would be interesting to me... I'm going to organise an event like this, I just want to know if other people are already doing the same thing.

So what do I do if I need two resistors of the same value?



What happens if I want to use a component that Mouser doesn't stock? How will you handle exchange rates, if the only supplier is outside de US?



But you'll have to calculate the cost of the arduino board using the single-item price.

And what happens if you bought the components, but the prices change? How do you handle special offers?

I see turds all over the place...

This is possible, since the Arduino is an open hardware platform. You can make an Arduino clone yourself, if you want. Of course, due to surface mount components etc. involved in making a good clone it's often easier to buy a construction kit (eg. Freeduino).

That raises another point. The surface mount versions of ICs are often cheaper than DIP versions... yet another turd in our lunch.

oh damn. those Xilinx Vertex6 things are ... expensive.

It's funny how the categories may translate from the classical *K-categories. $4, $16, $64... With TI Launchpads going for about $4/piece it even makes sense.

This idea might work, but competitors would probably have to submit receipts to the compo organizers.

And using recycled material ?, maybe it should exist a table with the components prices independent if they are new or recycled ?

I'd just like to point out that 3rd world countries like Portugal, Spain or Greece have electronic components far cheaper than, say... Norway, Finland or Germany making those compos a bit unfair to some people.

I suggest wood working compo! So we could all share files!

What about counting the number of transistors in the chips used ? 64K would be just small enough to let the 68000 CPU out :)

I think this is an excellent idea!

Great idea! I'll join.

May I suggest that you pick a store (Farnell, DigiKey, whatever) and state that we use those prices as a reference only. How you obtain each component is insignificant, as long as other people can buy them from said shop for $30 or less.

That way recycling is allowed (and encouraged).

I think with 30 bucks I could do a rotating square on the TV using only analog parts... Not *that* impressive but very geeky..

Component prices are going to be a nightmare. Only way I can think to handle it is like this:

- You have an organiser to track prices. He uses the price list from whatever his local store is, and ignores any special offers/bulk discounts.
- He prepares a price list of common parts for everyone to use. You get a €64 or whatever limit, and can have any combination of parts off that list up to the limit. Maybe wires and stuff shouldn't count :)
- If you need something not on the list, you inform the orga. He gets a price for the part, and adds it to the list.

It'd be a pain to organise, but this way everyone gets the same prices at least.

Alternative idea: you're only allowed to use recycled stuff. An old keyboard, tv and game console plus some cunning and a hammer could be fun :)

I would suggest a watt-limitted demo compo. Again more wise.

... and also, I'm not in electronics , but isn't there some circuitry emulator you could use without having to purchase anything ?

quite cool idea !

just making it a "homemade electronics" would be cool enough.. if someone has the patience and economy to put a 1000 euro project down, fuck, let 'em win something :) Besides, if someone kicks ass with 10 euro, that's really cool too.. let the audience be the judge..

$30 in Norway or $30 in Hungary/Poland? :)

The $30 in Norway-compo would be cool too. One can do awesome effects on a carton of milk.

huzza for one of the most impractical democompo ideas ever!

found a marketing company and sell your idea to a electronics web shop :)

Now that would make sense! 100mW to do everything...

Screw the rules..

This is a call to those who are interested: Ignore arbitrary restriction. Do whatever you want to do and if you don't fail enter a good old wild competition...

I did an estimate how much it would cost me to bring a rotating cube with pure analog electronics on the screen. It's a lot. I need a shitload of expensive four quadrant analog-multipliers do implement the 3d rotation, and another shitload of two quadrant multipliers to render the three visible trapezoids..

but it's doable...

And it will have infinite resolution (no need for antialias stuff) as well.