ChessBot - A Chess Playing Robot
Here is my latest Propeller-based robot project. It is called ChessBot and is designed to take away the drudgery of manually moving chess pieces.
There have been many chess playing robots in the past and these machines either used a long robotic arm to pick up and place the chess pieces or provided locomotion with a movable electromagnet located under the board. ChessBot takes a hybrid approach that produces a more visually interesting way to move a chess pieces. It uses a Lynxmotion AL5D robotic arm to pick up and place pieces but does not rely totally on the arm to provide placement. The arm itself is mounted on a mobile platform (called the Cart) that can align the arm precisely with any row or column (called Rank and File in the chess world) on the chessboard.
The most novel feature of ChessBot’s positioning system is the ability to rotate the entire chessboard by up to 180 degrees. By using the cart and the rotating board approach the robotic arm never has to reach into the chessboard by more than four squares. The arm is now able to operate in its reliable “sweet spot” and never has to over extend itself out into the far reaches of the chessboard. But most importantly it just looks really cool when it’s moving pieces around.
Although ChessBot by itself does not actually understand the game of Chess, it can be used as a mechanical user interface that supports a variety of game playing scenarios. In its simplest form, ChessBot can be used to play chess between two human players both of which are located with the game. In a more interesting scenario the players can be located remotely using a social networking service such as Twitter to send and receive moves and then observing the results on a Webcam. For automated play one of the human players can be replaced by chess playing software commonly referred to as a “chess engine”.
Below is a link to the YouTube demo video of ChessBot playing the classic "Queen's Gambit Declined" opening. You can also see it on my web site. You will be able to read all about ChessBot in the next two issues of Robot Magazine.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2G-nQuslaX0
http://www.norrislabs.com
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Steve Norris
www.norrislabs.com
There have been many chess playing robots in the past and these machines either used a long robotic arm to pick up and place the chess pieces or provided locomotion with a movable electromagnet located under the board. ChessBot takes a hybrid approach that produces a more visually interesting way to move a chess pieces. It uses a Lynxmotion AL5D robotic arm to pick up and place pieces but does not rely totally on the arm to provide placement. The arm itself is mounted on a mobile platform (called the Cart) that can align the arm precisely with any row or column (called Rank and File in the chess world) on the chessboard.
The most novel feature of ChessBot’s positioning system is the ability to rotate the entire chessboard by up to 180 degrees. By using the cart and the rotating board approach the robotic arm never has to reach into the chessboard by more than four squares. The arm is now able to operate in its reliable “sweet spot” and never has to over extend itself out into the far reaches of the chessboard. But most importantly it just looks really cool when it’s moving pieces around.
Although ChessBot by itself does not actually understand the game of Chess, it can be used as a mechanical user interface that supports a variety of game playing scenarios. In its simplest form, ChessBot can be used to play chess between two human players both of which are located with the game. In a more interesting scenario the players can be located remotely using a social networking service such as Twitter to send and receive moves and then observing the results on a Webcam. For automated play one of the human players can be replaced by chess playing software commonly referred to as a “chess engine”.
Below is a link to the YouTube demo video of ChessBot playing the classic "Queen's Gambit Declined" opening. You can also see it on my web site. You will be able to read all about ChessBot in the next two issues of Robot Magazine.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2G-nQuslaX0
http://www.norrislabs.com
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Steve Norris
www.norrislabs.com
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Comments
-Phil
Fascinating.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gq0XnAuXS1Y
There is no piece replacement but ChessBot handles pawn promotion. ChessBot itself does not understand the game and·it's job is to just move pieces. There is a wireless serial link (Parallax 912 mhz transceiver) back to a PC that can control the moves based on a human player input,·the playing back of a PGN (Portable Game Notation) file or input from a remote player via·Twitter.
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Steve Norris
www.norrislabs.com
Great project - as usual! The resignation is very dramatic. I've felt like that before...
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Whit+
"We keep moving forward, opening new doors, and doing new things, because we're curious and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths." - Walt Disney
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PG
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Steve Norris
www.norrislabs.com
:-)