A Robotic Arm Is the Best Quarantine Chess Buddy

Playing chess against a computer is nothing new, but a 2D screen can never fully simulate the look and feel of real pieces. To help take this “game of kings” into the real world, Michalsky created a robotic arm based on an Arduino Mega. Impressively, the device doesn’t require any interface with a PC, running the tiny µ-Max chess logic, which takes up under 2,000 characters.

With gameplay mechanics sorted, real-world control is accomplished with a 6-DOF kit robot arm, plus a PCA9685 servo driver. User interface consists of a 16 x 2 LCD character display, and chess pieces with magnets embedded on the bottom. Under the board, an array of 64 reed sensors pick up human moves, which are passed along to the Arduino via a pair of 74HC165 shift registers.

Circuitry is laid out nicely on a number of custom PCBs, and there’s an optional speaker for feedback, such as to tell you when you’ve made an invalid move. The setup is powered by a 12V supply of at least 5000mA, and a regulator is used to step down to 5V as needed. Code and PCB design files are available in Michalsky's write-up, and you can see more photos with a demo of it in action in the video below.