Online chess is a fun way to exercise your brain without feeling completely and cripplingly alone. Despite its convenience, though, it can never give you the pleasant click of a chess piece against the board, or the satisfying feeling of flipping the board over when you win.
Until now, at least.
Students at Northeastern University wanted to play online chess with a physical board. The YouTube video below demonstrates a set of robotic chessboards they developed to allow online gamers to have a sense of a physical chess game. The chessboards contain sensors and an Arduino-controlled robotic mechanism to move the chess pieces, mimicking the moves of players who might be thousands of miles apart.
The board uses a grid of reed switch sensors under the table to detect the pieces’ movements and positions. When one player moves a piece, a robotic X-Y frame mechanism under the other player’s table physically moves the corresponding piece to its new position using electromagnets. When a piece is taken, the board slides it off the table.
Both boards are accompanied by online software on a local computer. The software digitally displays the pieces’ movements, makes sure that the moves are actually legal, and then transfers the movement data.
There is no limit to the ways the Internet of Things could connect us. Mere physical reality is no longer the limit of the internet’s capabilities.