Discounted and Free Development Kits by Future Electronics and Texas Instruments

If you have a project in mind, Future Electronics and Texas Instruments are currently offering free development boards and 50% discounts on selected development kits respectively.

Future Electronics Boards4Free Initiative

In August, Future Electronics will be giving away 5 boards every Wednesday (20 boards in total). Here’s how it works:

Every Wednesday at 12 pm EST from August 1 to August 22 Future Electronics will post a board on their Twitter, Facebook and Google+ feeds.
Reply to them on Twitter, comment on their post on Facebook or comment on their post on Google+ with your project idea to enter into the contest. Each action counts as on entry, so you can get up to 3 entries
Each weekly drawing period begins at 12 pm EST and ends at 12:30 pm EST. (So you’ve just got 30 minutes to enter, unless I missed something)
Future Electronics will draw 5 winners and give away 5 boards each week, and the winner will be announced every Wednesday after the contest has closed.

They did not provide details about the type of boards, but I would assume those will be MCU based development or evaluation boards. This is an international contest, so anybody can enter, except those who live in US embargoed countries.

Go to Boards4Free page for details

Texas Instruments 50% Discount on Development Kits

If you plan to enter the 2012 Wearable Technologies Innovation World Cup, TI is offering a 50% discount on the first 200 registrants that choose to work with one of their kits (Price indicated are before discount):

CC85XXDK-HEADSET – PurePath Wireless Headset Development Kit – $149.00
CC2540DK-Mini – CC2540 Mini Development Kit) – $99
CC2530ZDK-ZNP-Mini – The ZigBee Network Processor allows adding ZigBee interface to any application using a simple serial interface – $99
CC110L RF Booster Pack – A low-power wireless transceiver extension kit for use with the Texas Instruments MSP-EXP430G2 LaunchPad development kit – $19
eZ430-RF256x – a complete TI Bluetooth® evaluation and demonstration tool for the MSP430 and TI’s Bluetooth that includes all the necessary hardware and software in a convenient USB stick – $99

To participate go to to www.innovation-worldcup.com and fill out the Innovation World Cup Wearable Technologies form. You will get a confirmation of your participation right after registration, and if you choose to design with one of the kits mentioned above, you will receive a discount code that can be used in the TI eStore towards the purchase of one featured kit.

Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft)

Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software engineering manager, and starting to write daily news, and reviews full time later in 2011.