The Self Moving Chess Game

Students Innovating Technology Club (SIT)
Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT)

Introduction

Last December SIT club decided to build a special chess game.  This chess game would have a computer that would play against a human opponent.  It would also be able to move its own pieces.  The project has two parts:  the hardware part and AI or software part.

Hardware

The movement of the chess piece will take place by an electromagnet or rare earth magnet positioned below the pieces.  The chess pieces all have magnets embedded in them.  The mechanism to move the magnet on the bottom of the chess board will use two axes.  Each axis will be powered by a motor connected to a screw running through a carriage.  By turning the screw the carriage will move up and down the screw.

Current tests indicate that a 2"x2" square size should be used.  That makes a movable area of 16"x16".  The board will be a little bit larger than that because of the clearance needed for the carriages below on the very extreme positions.  The reason that a 2"x2" size is needed is because with the current chess pieces and magnet, if the pieces are close enough to each other they can collapse onto each other as the magnet moves below.

Detection of the chess pieces on the board will probably take place by Hall Effect sensors placed under each piece position.  By continually monitoring the state of the sensors, the position of each piece can be determined.

Software

The AI is planned to use a PIC32 microcontroller.  This will have the chess program on it to play against the human opponent.  It will also compute the movement of the chess pieces across the board.

Block Diagram

Parts

Item	Part Number
Microcontroller	PIC32 Starter Kit
Hall Effect Sensors	A3290KLHLT-T
Mosfets N Channel(for the H-bridge design)	IRFZ40
Mosfets P Channel	IRF9Z30
X-Axis Threaded Rods	~20 inches
Y-Axis Threaded Rods	~20 inches
Motors	12V-15V 300mA

Links

The Chess Playing Machine Homepage (Boise State University)
MCU Chess (Cornell University)

Check out our club’s web page here.

Contact info

Write to: axk7...@rit.edu (Click on the ellipses to get the email address.)