It’s a great pleasure to introduce the new member of the Arduino and Genuino family: MKR1000 is a powerful board that combines the functionality of the Zero and the connectivity of the Wi-Fi Shield.

It’s based on the Atmel ATSAMW25 that is part of the SmartConnect family of Atmel Wireless devices, specifically designed for IoT. It offers the ideal solution for makers seeking to add Wi-Fi connectivity with minimal previous experience in networking.

The new board will be available for purchase from February 2016 but starting today #1000 MKR1000 can be won in the World’s Largest Arduino Maker Challenge in collaboration with Hackster.IO and Microsoft.

We want to celebrate the maker community so we thought there’s no better way to do that than encourage inventors, artists, makers, hobbyists or professionals and developers to create on Arduino. The contest is very flexible – choose anything you want to build from environmental sensors to gaming, augmented reality, robotics or UAVs using the power of Arduino.cc boards and Windows 10.

The 1,000 makers who submit the best project ideas will receive the newly released Arduino MKR1000 (US only) and Genuino MKR1000 (Outside US) boards. Then three finalists submitting the best completed projects will be awarded with a fully-funded trip to Maker Faire Shenzhen, New York or Rome; a chance to present their creation at the Microsoft and the Arduino and Genuino booths; a professional video production of the project; and a whopping $500 gift certificate to Adafruit.

Contest starts today,  December 9th 2015, when participants can sign up or log into Hackster and enter to win the new MKR1000 board by pitching the idea. Idea submissions close on January 15, 2016 at 11:59 PM (PT).

Save the date and participate now!