555 Contest Finale

Jeri Ellsworth's 555 contest is in the home stretch, and I've got my acceptance speech all ready. "I'd like to thank the members of the Academy... and above all the people of the Azores, who were put at risk by the large kite that carried my 555 timer circuit and 35 mm camera over their unprotected heads..."

Here's my entry: http://www.gadgeteer.us/KAP.HTM

Forrest Mims is one of the judges. Here is what he had to say:

[The participants] displayed an absolutely remarkable range of engineering skills, creativity and dedication to meet the deadline. Also impressive was the use of video and photography to illustrate many of the entries.

This contest helps restore my confidence in analog designers, who have become a very small minority in electronics these days. Some of these projects do with great simplicity and efficiency what exclusively digital designers would have great difficulty emulating. Moreover, a number of these projects have potential commercial merit. Hopefully the developers will be able to pursue this.

The winners will be announced tonight at 9 pm Eastern Time:
http://www.555contest.com/news/

(Oh no! There must be some sort of mistake! I checked the list of finalists and my kite entry is not there!)