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Chess robot

Introducing: the chess-playing robot that will defeat any opponent who challenges it (mostly because, you know.. Stockfish). The robot is composed of a sleek metal frame and a sturdy acrylic playing surface with a laser-engraved chessboard. A gantry system powered by stepper motors and timing belts moves a claw-like gripper around the board to enact the will of its chess engine AI. Roughly the size of a coffee table and noticeably heavier, this bot is sure to fill out your entire living room with a family-friendly competitive atmosphere.

Chess robot

Fig 1. The Chess robot in its natural environment (circa 2021).

Project highlights

  • AI opponent powered by the Stockfish chess engine
  • 3d gantry system for moving the piece gripper (design inspired by 3d printers)
  • Arduino microcontroller for motors and sensors
  • Raspberry pi for running the chess engine and controller
  • Display screen for tracking the game state
  • Camera for detecting the game state (and automating the AI opponent's turn)
  • Spiral arm piece gripper with smooth acrylic slots for gripper arms
  • Laser-engraved acrylic chess board
  • Full-size chessboard (which doubles as a coffee table when not in use ☕)

Chess robot highlights

Fig 2. The chess robot gripper (upper left), controller (lower left), and gantry movement system (right).

Future work

Given much more sleek chess bots available online, I'd like to revisit this project at some point and turn it into a buildable toy kit. I still like the gantry system idea, but it does make it hard to access the pieces. It's also way too big for the average child (or adult for that matter -- but you should've seen the first version of this bot, which had to be disassembled to even take it out of the room it was built in 🫠). So perhaps we shrink the size and simplify the number of moving components.

I also like the spiral arm gripper, but it's not very consistent. Maybe need to replace the claw design with an easier magnetic-based design. It would also be cool to have an AI opponent that learns to play like you and challenges your weak points to improve your play.