Here at uCHobby we want to promote hobby electronics and have a particular focus on microcontrollers used in hobby projects. To help the community we giveaway electronic parts in exchange for things that also benefit the electronics community.

There are several ways to get a giveaway item from uCHobby as listed below. Read more about each way to receive an item in the titled sections.

Please read:
Please read all the sections before you make any efforts toward the giveaway requirements. Some of the conditions are very specific and are described in the respective sections below.

Program Categories

• Hobby Electronics Article
  Have an article published at uCHobby. Read more in the Article section below.
• Hobby Web Site Link
  If you have a web site related to electronics hobby you can receive a giveaway time for a link back to uCHobby. Read more in the Hobby Webs Site Link section below.
• Link to uCHobby
  Link to uCHobby content in an article on your blog or as a comment to a related article at another site.
• Tip uCHobby
  Tip an article at uCHobby to one of the maker or electronics hobby sites.
• Contest at uCHobby
  On occasion we run a contest for giveaway items. These contest are usually simple to enter, often just a good comment on an article will do.

Giveaway Items

The available giveaway items are listed here. There are several options so you can participate more then once to get multiple giveaway items.

• For Articles published at uCHobby or hobby Web Site Links.
  • Arduino Comparable Bare Bones Board Kit from Modern Device Company
  • Arduino Comparable Really Bare Bones Board Kit from Modern Device Company
  • LCD Serial Backpack Kit from Modern Device Company
  • Breadboard Power Supply Kit From Curious Inventor
  • Package of 6 prototyping boards form Wright Hobbies
  • Any item on the list below are also available in this category.
• For basic links and tips to uCHobby
  • Arduino Comparable Bare Bones Board PCB only
  • Arduino Comparable Really Bare Bones Board PCB only
  • Breadboard Power Supply PCB only
• For Contest at uCHobby
  • These items are listed along with the contest announcements.

Sponsorship of giveaways

uCHobby has Google Ad Sense advertising which helps pay for the giveaway items. We may also have sponsors who provide giveaway items in exchange for advertising at uCHobby. In fact, that is the only way we currently accept advertising. More information about the way uCHobby accepts sponsorship in exchange for advertising can be found in this article announcing our first sponsor. For more information contact me dfowler@uchobby.com

Guidelines

Submission requirements and guidelines are detailed below. If the text here does not answer your question send me an email (dfowler@uchobby.com). Always ask first.

The priority at uCHobby is to benefit the electronics hobby community. Any articles, links, tips, or comments done as part of the giveaway program must adhere to the basic principal of benefiting the electronics hobby community. No spam or advertising of products in disguise will be accepted.

• Hobby Electronics Article
  

  By submitting an article you are acknowledging that you own the material and have the right to submit it for publishing at uCHobby. We reserve the right to edit, remove, or to optionally publish the submitted articles. Your article submission may or may not be accepted.

  Articles can be on any subject that would be of interest to the electronics hobby community. Articles do not have to focus on a particular project. Some of the best articles so far have been general information articles with descriptions of basic concepts.

  Look around the site for example articles. When a submitted article is published the author is given full credit early in the text so you can easily tell that the article was submitted.

  Articles should contain pictures and diagrams. These make the article more appealing and help get the points across. Take pictures and supply schematics or screen shots with your article. Make sure you own or have the right to supply the picture as well.

  A good article will have several outgoing links to related information on the web. When you mention a product or site in your article, include a link visitors can use to get more information. For example; locate and link to, an article at Wikipedia to explain what a transistor is. Link to the main site for a software tool or hardware component mentioned in your article.

  Articles submissions should be plain text, without HTML tags. For links use "[url]" next to the text you want linked. use "[filename]" for pictures or files which should also be included in the submission. We will format the text into HTML for use on the site. You are welcome to suggest formatting in the text. Again use "[]" to surround your comments, links, files, and suggestions.

  Articles do not have to be exclusive to uCHobby. They do have to be initially published at uCHobby however. Do not submit content that has already been published elsewhere. Once the article has run (give it a week at least) then you are free to publish it elsewhere. If you submit it to another site, you must inform them that the article has been published at uCHobby.

  The key here is that you still own the article content when a article is published. In at least one case a uCHobby author was approached to have his article published in a hobby magazine. This is great and we fully support this without any further considerations. We hope the magazine article mentions uCHobby but even that is not required.

  email me (dfowler@uchobby.com) to confirm that your article topic would be good for uCHobby. I suggest that you do this if you have any doubt.

  Pack all the files for your article into a zip file and email them to dfowler@uchobby. You will receive a reply with some information about when your article will be reviewed. This can take a few days but if you do not receive a reply in two days, send a follow up message. The submission may have got lost in a spam filter somewhere.

• Hobby Web Site Link
  If you have a web site related to electronics hobby, add uCHobby to your blog roll or place a link on your main page as part of the site. These links help hobbyist find uCHobby and show that you believe it is a good site, deserving of a link form you. If you feel that uCHobby is a good match for your visitors then it is likely that we would also.

  To qualify for the giveaway item the link must be on your own site. Your site must have content related to electronics hobby and your visitors would benefit from a link to uCHobby.

  Send an email to me (dfowler@uchobby.com) with a link to the page where we can confirm the link and the context. We do expect that the link will stay in place at your site. After all, to meet the conditions above a link to uCHobby should benefit your visitors so it stands to reason that you would maintain the link.

• Link to uCHobby
  Link to related uCHobby content in an article on your blog or as a comment to a related article at another site. We will not reward spamming of comments on articles. We are looking for links to content at uCHobby which would be of benefit to the article or blog readers.

  To qualify, send an email to dfowler@uchobby.com with a link back to the article which includes the link. If we believe the comment was appropriate then we will award the giveaway item.

• Tip uCHobby
  Tip an article at uCHobby to one of the maker or electronics hobby related sites. To receive a giveaway you should use the suggest a site link and send an email to dfowler@uchobby.com. We can award only one giveaway item for an article tip and will do this only for cases where we received the email before the tipped site mentions content at uCHobby. Your email must include a link to the tip submission page, the link you submitted, and the name used for crediting the tip. If the tipped site does not have a submission page, include details such that we could make future submissions or request at that site.

  It is possible that people might try to game this option. You need to be quick with the email claiming credit for the tip as we will award the first person that makes the claim.

  The tipped site must mention the content at uCHobby. In other words, tipping alone is not enough. The tipped site must mention the tip with a link back to content at uCHobby.

• Contest at uCHobby
  We have comment or other types of contest at uCHobby where you can win giveaway items. Usually these contest only require that you make a contributing comment on an article. The giveaway items for these contest are detailed as part of the contest announcement.

  There are two contest in progress as I write this and one that has completed. You should check the announcements for each of the contest to see if they are still active. while I will try to keep this list updated it may not be accurate.

  • Current Contest
    Contest details are usually at the end of an article so read down the page for the announcement.
    • Comment Contest 1
    • Comment Contest 2

  • Past Contest

    To give you an idea of what kind of contest we have, the first one awarded Breadboard Power Supply Kits from Curious Inventor for finding typo’s or errors in an article. This contest is long over but it should give you an idea for the kinds of contest we may have at uCHobby.

We hope that the giveaway program at uCHobby will help build the electronics hobby community and the uCHobby web site. If you have any questions or suggestions on how we might improve send me an email, dfowler@uchobby.com.