Moog Music announces the opening of the 4th Annual Moog Circuit Bending Challenge to inspire electronic tinkering and music creativity.

This yearly competition was created in honor of Moog Music founder Bob Moog, who started tinkering with electronic circuitry at a young age. As a boy, he was already building amps, radios and Theremins in his basement workshop along with his father.

This experimentation with electronic devices helped pave the way to many modern advances, and specifically in Moog's case are the many iconic synthesizers he helped design and manufacture. Now Moog Music is inspiring new generation of tinkerers and sponsors an annual competition to showcase the art of electronic experimentation - which they call circuit bending.

This year's challenge is to tinker with a battery powered device and circuit bend it into a musical instrument that produces unique sounds. To make the contest more exciting, a budget limit of no more than $70 is set. The resulting instruments would then require less money and more creativity.

The entrants are required to create and upload videos to YouTube showcasing their project instruments and documenting their project development. Contestants require a Bill of Materials, and a step by step list of instructions so that others can replicate the modifications and come up with the same musical instrument.

Moog will be selecting the finalists from these uploaded videos and invite them to a final showdown at the Moogfest event in April of 2014. The grand prize winner will then be decided by Moog judges with the help of the general public.

The 3rd place winner will receive a Moog Minitaur, the 2nd placer will get a Moog Slim Phatty, while the Grand Prize winner will receive a Moog Sub Phatty, which carries a tag price of $1,099.

To give you an idea, here is one of the finalist entries from last year's competition:

For more information and to join the contest, you can visit Moog Fest.

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Moogfest 2014