Tuesday 24 May 2011

A different approach to a robotic chess player

Via a couple of sources is the latest story on robotic chess. Patrick McCabe has built a gantry style robotic system to move chess pieces on a the board. The system uses a 'grabber' to pick up pieces and place them on their new squares (or off the board if they are captured). As designs go, it is pretty straight forward, and looks simpler to implement that an robotic arm. It even uses some fairly cheap hardware, including an Arduino control board, which can be purchased for $40.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

What I don't understand is why one doesn't just use one's hands to move the pieces. Chess programs are stronger than humans, but surely they can't outstrip us by much on the piece-moving front! (At least Led Zep's Fool in the Rain was playing in the background...)

AO