17. Applications and Implications¶
This week I worked on defining aspects of my final project.
What will it do¶
For my final project, I wanted to challenge myself with mechanical aspects, and its main purpose is to have a chess board that moves the pieces automatically with an electromagnet underneath. It will also involve an interface with a chess display with which users can input moves, and before sending this to the main system, it will check if it is a legal move.
Who’s done what beforehand¶
Greg06 on instructables has made a board that does automatic moves, but there are some differences with what I seek to make. Firstly, I will have an interface implemented along with user inputted moves while Greg06’s board has the user manually make the move and a bot respond to it. This means that my board will better be able to make sure all moves made are legal before the pieces are moved along with the fact that there wouldn’t be risk of misalignment of the piece after moving that would cause the magnet to then be unable to move it. Some design process differences are that I will be making my own pieces and I will use microcontrollers and pcb boards instead of an arduino nano.
What will you design¶
- 2d gantry system
- Chess board top
- Chess pieces
- Networked pcb boards for each stepper motor, the 3d hall effect sensor, and the electromagnet
- Interface displaying virtual board and inputing moves
Materials and components¶
| Part and link | Source | Quantity | Cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Electromagnet | Digikey | 1 | 9.95 |
| V slot aluminium extrusions | Amazon | 1 order | 59.99 |
| V slot rollers | Amazon | 9 | 18.98 |
| m4x25 bolts | Amazon | 19 | 4.62 |
| m4 nuts | Amazon | 19 | 5.99 |
| Gear belt | Amazon | 1 | 15.99 |
| Stepper motors | zyltech | 2 | 20.90 |
| L298N motor drivers | Amazon | 3 | 20.97 |
| Magnets | Amazon | 40 | 9.99 |
| Attiny1614 | Digikey | 3 | 3.03 |
| 3d hall effect sensor | Digikey | 1 | 3.05 |
| Black ACM | Piedmont Plastics | 1 | 37.43 |
| total | N/a | N/a | 210.89 |
What parts and systems will be made¶
The main physical system will be the board with all the electronics controling piece movement. This would include the frame as well as the 2d gantry, top board, and pieces. The main software system will be the interface, which will also check for legal moves, checkmate, and stalemate. This will handle much of the processing power since a PC can execute these data processing aspects quicker, and it eliminates the risk of running out of memory on a microcontroller. These 2 systems will be connected through serial communication.
What processes will be used¶
- Pcb design for the boards
- Embedded programming
- Interfacing
- Computer controlled cutting for the top board
- 3d printing for most of the gantry besides the aluminium extrusions
- Networking to connect the boards together
What questions need to be answered¶
I will need to determine the best way to calculate legal moves as well as determining checkmate and stalemate, which, in the best case senario, will hopefully not involve brute forcing all possible moves and checking if they are legal due to losing the king. I will also need to carefully design the gantry system so that the electromagnet is as close to the top board as possible but not draggin accross it.
How will it be evaluated¶
My project will be evaluated based on how well it moves the pieces in response to move inputs from the interface.