Happy Birthday, element14!

The Best Thing to Ever Happen to June 14th.

So, in the style of our Raspberry Pi celebration, I was going to kick-off this post talking about other really cool things that happened on June 14th. However, after looking at the Wikipedia Page dedicated to this date... I was honestly coming up a bit short. Yes, things happened, but a lot of them weren't great. For example, Albert II became the first monkey in space... before dying on impact. Yikes. So instead, myself and tariq.ahmad decided that element14 is probably the best thing to ever happen on June 14th. Go us!

Happy "First" Birthday!

And while this is the eighth birthday for the community, this is a "first" for a couple members of the element14 team, so wanted to give a quick shout out to e14phil danzima, Mindi and of course... yours truly (though it's a bit depressing to wish "happy birthday" to oneself). But I digress. Here's to a happy "first birthday" to the newest members of the element14 team, and what will hopefully be many more years to come.

Birthday Presents!

To help commemorate the occasion, every member who logs in between now and June 28th, 12PM CDT will receive the "element14 8th Birthday Badge". This is a limited time only badge, and once the day and time has passed you will no longer be able to receive it (even if you ask really, really nicely). In addition to this, we'll be giving away eight birthday presents to various members of the community. You heard (read) that correctly - we'll be giving presents to you!

How to Win

Comment below with where you were or what you were doing when the element14 community launched. While some of you were probably diligently working to ensure a smooth and successful launch (looking at you, ChristyZ), many of us didn't join until weeks, months or years later. We'll choose eight members who reply, and send them their choice of the following presents:

• Raspberry Pi IBM IoT Learner Kit
• TinkerKit Starter Kit
• BeagleBoard Blue Robotics Controller Kit
• BeagleBoard Black Wireless

For example: On June 14th, 2009 I was likely celebrating the finish of Finals Week at my University. Since DePaul is on a quarter system, we generally went a bit latter into the year than other schools, with Finals Week usually the first or second week of June. And by celebrating, I was probably catching up after a few all nighters and trying really, really, really hard to not stress about my pending grades (I graduated with a 3.445, so I think I did fairly well, even if I missed *** Laude by .005).

You have until June 30th, 11:59AM (noon) CDT to enter.

Going Green

Looking for another cool way to celebrate June 14th and potentially win some prizes? Be sure to check out Going Green, the newest Project14 competition that's launching today! This is the first theme that was chosen by members of the community, so we're all very excited to see what cool projects you come up with.