Digi-Key Electronics and Hackaday are teaming up for the Flexible PCB Contest and challenging makers to get creative with a board design 2 square inches (13 square cm) or smaller.

Flexible PCBs can have useful applications: their thinness and flexibility allow them to fit in places where rigid PCBs and wires might not work and can reduce the overall weight of a project.

The most exciting part of the contest is the prize - 60 winners will be chosen, each of whom will receive a code to get three PCBs of their design manufactured for free. Four winners will also receive $100 gift certificates to Tindie, an online marketplace for hardware.

Until fairly recently, the high cost and large order requirements of manufacturing of flexible PCBs have made it difficult for hobbyists to experiment on a small scale. But now that PCB prototyping services like OSHPark are offering flex options, the technological barrier has been broken and anyone from hackers to businesses can work with the material with ease.

"We want to encourage makers of all types to try out this newly accessible material and see what they can do with it," says David Sandys, director of business ecosystem development at Digi-Key.

"The Hackaday audience has always provided incredible insights into design, usage and applicability of technology and we believe the community is ideal for providing uniquely unparalleled creative submissions for this contest."

The Flexible Circuit Contest runs from March 6 through May 29, 2019. Hackaday's parent company is Supplyframe.