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ChessBot: Automated Chessboard

Overview

ChessBot is an innovative project developed by the IEEE RAS - Demobots team. It is a CNC-inspired automated chessboard designed to enhance the experience of playing chess. Using an actuated electromagnet gantry system, ChessBot can move magnetized chess pieces across the board autonomously, allowing for a seamless game between two players or against a computer-controlled opponent. The project aims to merge the ancient game of chess with modern technology, providing a unique and interactive experience.

Features

  • Automated Piece Movement: Moves chess pieces using an electromagnet on a step-driven gantry system, controlled under the board.

  • Magnetized Chess Pieces: Each piece is magnetized for precise and secure movement. Piece movements are detected via 3D magnetic sensors underneath each square.

  • Player vs. Computer Mode: Play against an AI with adjustable difficulty settings.

  • Two-Player Online Mode: Enjoy an enhanced tele-chess experience with automated piece movements that reflect your partner's movements from across the internet using Lichess

Installation & Setup (WIP)

Make sure you have Python 3.6 or higher installed on your system. You can download it from the official Python website.

If on Windows use WSL for now, as the code is not tested on Windows.

  1. Clone the repository to your local machine:
git clone https://github.com/ut-ras/chessbot.git
  1. Install the required Python packages:
cd chessbot
pip install -r requirements.txt
  1. install stockfish and note what path it is installed to, you will need this for the python script. On Ubuntu or WSL you can do this with the following commands:
sudo apt-get install stockfish && which stockfish

The output of the which stockfish command will be the path to the stockfish binary. Copy that path, you will need this for the python script.

  1. In the python/bitboard_with_stockfish.py file, change the stockfish_path variable to the path of the stockfish binary you found in the previous step.

  2. Run the Python script:

python python/bitboard_with_stockfish.py

Software

  • python/bitboard_with_stockfish.py - This is the main file that runs the chess engine. It uses the python-chess library to interface with the Stockfish chess engine. The bitboard implementation is a custom implementation that uses 64-bit integers to represent the chessboard. Makes calls to functions in python/display_output.py, animates the board for a 128x64 display, currently only makes the bitmap.

    • Bitboards are 64bit integer representations of the entire chessboard. 8x8 squares = 64 squares, so a digital for each individual square, that digit is 1 when a piece is on the corresponding square and 0 when a piece is absent from the square.

    • So far we arent using any "standard" bitboard implementations, as our situation is a tad unique. Most chess engines that utilize 12 bitboards, one for each piece type, ( [pawn + knight + bishop + rook + queen + king] * 2 teams = 12 piece types).

    • Here is a diagram of how each space on the chessboard is indexed in the bitboard, the number at each square is the digital that is either high or low depending on if a piece is there or not. For example, square a4 is position 32

        8 |  0  1  2  3  4  5  6  7
  7 |  8  9 10 11 12 13 14 15
  6 | 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23
  5 | 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31
  4 | 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39
  3 | 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47
  2 | 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55
  1 | 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63
     -------------------------
     a  b  c  d  e  f  g  h

TODO

  • Assemble and test chessboard PCB's - each is an individual rank of the board that connect together.
  • Fill this section in with what we have left to do lol