Win $3000 for creating an app under 10K

The people behind Mix Online and An Event Apart are running a contest to create a responsive app with just 10K of code.

The 10K Apart event debuted last year and was massively successful: 300 people took up the challenge in less than a month and built some ingenious creations, which are showcased on the original site.

This year the rules are different: it's 10K zipped as opposed to 10K unzipped, and the app must be "reasonably responsive". It also needs to work equally well in IE10 Platform Preview 2, Firefox and a Webkit browser (Chrome or Safari).

There are four libraries that you're allowed to use: jQuery 1.6.2 minified, Prototype 1.7.0, Typekit and eCSStender with the Grid extension. That last one has been created because IE10 is the only browser to have implemented the new CSS Grid Layout Module - this extension enables you to make a cross-browser app with Grids. The libraries don't count against your 10K.

There's an expert judging panel including Jeffrey Zeldman and "Responsive Web Design" author Ethan Marcotte.

Zeldman told us: "Mies said 'Less is more' and nowhere is that truer than on the web. Even if half our audience has high-speed connections half the time, the rest of the time they're struggling to get true 3G out of their smartphone. In the early days of web design, Stewart Butterfield created a 5k contest to celebrate how much could be done with just a few bytes of good code and pixels. (Details: alistapart.com/articles/5k/.) If working small mattered in the days of dial-up modems, it matters just as much in our new mobile age.

"And that's why, for the second year in a row, the brilliant developers at Mix Online have teamed up with An Event Apart, the design conference for people who make websites, to challenge designers and developers do great things with a mere 10k. Last year was about leveraging web fonts and platforms like jQuery. This year we up the ante by challenging contestants to design responsively. Eric Meyer, the AEA staff and I are thrilled to be part of this meaningful and fun creative challenge. (And if the fun doesn't motivate you, maybe the 10k in prizes helps.)"

Entries are due by 12th September and there are cash prizes for runners up.