Official Everybody Edits Forums

Swarth100

Member

Joined: 2015-07-18

Posts: 305

#SEM2.0 ~ ElectroMagnetic ChessBoard

Final HighSchool Project: #SEM2.0

(The actual machine... I'm looking through my Camera Roll for better photos)

(Our GUI)

(The project rendered in Blender)

(For all those who will ask, the hashtag comes from Italian... "Scacchiera ElettroMagnetica ~ #SEM")

Chess moves are played on the computer and are executed in the "real world" by our machine. Apart from the OpenSource StockFish chess engine, all the program was coded in Python from scratch using PyGame as a Graphical Interface. We also built the actual machine ordering an ElectroMagnet and Two Stepper Motors on Amazon.

How are the moves executed?
-The two stepper motors move the electromagnet under the chess piece to be moved.
-The electromagnet is a magnet that can be switched on and off
-Each piece has underneath a small magnet charged oppositely to the charge given by the magnet... Once the e.m. Is turned on the chess-piece and the e.m. are attracted to each other.
-During such attraction the piece can be moved on the chessboard.
-We have a 10*10 board so dead pieced can be placed outside the 8*8 playing field

(Explaining the above statement)
- Pieces are 2cm wide and the chess-board tiles are 4cm wide... This allows us to make moves that would require "jumps" such as knight moves or castling.

More Photos:

(Top View)

(Kinda Side View)

Anch

Member

Joined: 2015-02-16

Posts: 5,447

Re: #SEM2.0 ~ ElectroMagnetic ChessBoard

Wait wait wait you built that?

Swarth100

Member

Joined: 2015-07-18

Posts: 305

Re: #SEM2.0 ~ ElectroMagnetic ChessBoard

Yup! From scratch.

There was a 1.0 version but we decided to re-build it from the base due to some pretty big techincal problems (not in the code, but in the actual mechanics)

We are currently running the 2.0.12 version, hopefully releasing the .13 by end July... There might also be a 3.0 version next year!

Anch

Member

Joined: 2015-02-16

Posts: 5,447

Re: #SEM2.0 ~ ElectroMagnetic ChessBoard

Wow I can't even make a chess piece.

0176

Member

From: Brazil

Joined: 2021-09-05

Posts: 3,174

Re: #SEM2.0 ~ ElectroMagnetic ChessBoard

Does it shoot lasers?

Swarth100

Member

Joined: 2015-07-18

Posts: 305

Re: #SEM2.0 ~ ElectroMagnetic ChessBoard

Not yet

Onjit

Member

Joined: 2015-02-15

Posts: 9,709

Website

Re: #SEM2.0 ~ ElectroMagnetic ChessBoard

Can the knight move if there are pieces in the way?

Eg:

---

:.|:;

Hostage

Banned

From: Hell

Joined: 2015-06-02

Posts: 1,317

Website

Re: #SEM2.0 ~ ElectroMagnetic ChessBoard

Can the knight move if there are pieces in the way?

Eg:

EDIT: misunderstood.

k w/e

---

skullz17

Member

Joined: 2015-02-15

Posts: 6,699

Re: #SEM2.0 ~ ElectroMagnetic ChessBoard

Can the knight move if there are pieces in the way?

Eg:

ye

you're not spinastar

I was also wondering the same thing. Unless the pieces are placed in a way that things can go in between them. Also I was wondering, as it is moving a piece, could it accidentally attract the magnet from another piece?

---

thx for sig bobithan

Onjit

Member

Joined: 2015-02-15

Posts: 9,709

Website

Re: #SEM2.0 ~ ElectroMagnetic ChessBoard

^ I was curious about that

---

:.|:;

Swarth100

Member

Joined: 2015-07-18

Posts: 305

Re: #SEM2.0 ~ ElectroMagnetic ChessBoard

Yeah pieces are 2 cm wide at the base and the tiles are 4 cm wide, so pieces can always move along the chess-board lines successfuly passing inbetween other pieces (when the knigh moves, in castling moves and when pieces are eaten).
Answering the second question: yes, if the magnet does not move properly along the board (or certain pieces are misplaced) it might accidentaly attract another piece (it still always moves one piece at a time), so a lot of our work was focused on proper placing and exact movement (we had it run tests for hours to see if on the long run it would accidentaly move too much or too less on one or the other axis)

I hope I have cleared your doubts!