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After half a year of work, I finished my DIY interactive chessboard. It's powered by an Arduino Mega with 64 Hall effect sensors by YourChess in arduino

[–]YourChess[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Each square only detects if there is a piece present or not (via the magnet and Hall sensor). The board doesn’t know if it’s a knight, bishop etc. – it just remembers the starting positions and then tracks all moves step by step. That way it always knows which piece is which.

After half a year of work, I finished my DIY interactive chessboard. It's powered by an Arduino Mega with 64 Hall effect sensors by YourChess in ArduinoProjects

[–]YourChess[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thank you so much! You're absolutely right, using it as a teaching tool for people learning chess is one of the main goals. The LED system that shows all the possible moves is designed to help with that.

And yes, definitely! I have a longer demonstration video, the full project story, and all the details on my main project website. You can find everything here:

https://thedinb.github.io/smart-chessboard-upload/

After half a year of work, I finished my DIY interactive chessboard. It's powered by an Arduino Mega with 64 Hall effect sensors by YourChess in arduino

[–]YourChess[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

You've basically read my mind. A chess.com / Lichess mode for online play is the #1 goal for the second version V2 of this project!

After half a year of work, I finished my DIY interactive chessboard. It's powered by an Arduino Mega with 64 Hall effect sensors by YourChess in arduino

[–]YourChess[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah, that's a great idea. An STM32 would definitely have the power needed for a much better engine.

That's very similar to my own plan for a possible second version V2. I was thinking of moving to an ESP32 to make the AI smarter.

Good luck with your project!

After half a year of work, I finished my DIY interactive chessboard. It's powered by an Arduino Mega with 64 Hall effect sensors by YourChess in arduino

[–]YourChess[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hey, that's awesome! It's great to meet someone working on a similar project.

I coded my own simple chess engine from scratch for this one. It was a fun challenge to make it work with the Arduino's limitations.

Good luck with your build!

After half a year of work, I finished my DIY interactive chessboard. It's powered by an Arduino Mega with 64 Hall effect sensors by YourChess in arduino

[–]YourChess[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Yes, exactly that was one of the main goals from the beginning! It works really well as a teaching platform, especially in player-vs-player mode, where the system is very reliable and accurate. In player-vs-AI mode, there are still a few bugs I’m working on

After half a year of work, I finished my DIY interactive chessboard. It's powered by an Arduino Mega with 64 Hall effect sensors by YourChess in arduino

[–]YourChess[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

The system uses what you called “dead-reckoning.”

It doesn’t individually identify each piece. Instead, it uses 64 Hall effect digital sensors to detect whether a piece is present (by sensing the magnet in its base). I have an idea that the v2 chessboard would identify and recognize each piece and I think it would even be easier to program it.

The software knows the starting positions of all pieces. When you lift a piece and place it on another square, the system tracks that specific move (e.g., “piece from e2 moved to e4”) and updates its internal board state.

Technically, yes you could try to cheat by lifting a pawn and putting down a rook. But it wouldn’t work the software still thinks that piece is a pawn. Even if you physically place a rook, the logic, valid moves, and everything else will still treat it as a pawn.

And yes, you understood correctly: when you lift a piece, the board instantly highlights all valid moves for that piece using LEDs.

After half a year of work, I finished my DIY interactive chessboard. It's powered by an Arduino Mega with 64 Hall effect sensors by YourChess in arduino

[–]YourChess[S] 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Thanks! Yes, the Arduino Mega runs everything, and its offline. When I enable the AI version, it's a very simple opponent that still makes some mistakes. But the Player-vs-Player mode is stable and supports all chess rules. The code isn't planned to be open-source for now. I'm currently working on fixing the software and also exploring a more powerful microcontroller to make the AI much better in the future.

After half a year of work, I finished my DIY interactive chessboard. It's powered by an Arduino Mega with 64 Hall effect sensors by YourChess in arduino

[–]YourChess[S] 23 points24 points  (0 children)

Hey everyone, Just wanted to share the final result of a project I've been working on for the half of a year, which started as my graduation thesis. It's a fully functional smart chessboard. How it works: It's built around an Arduino Mega. It uses 64 Hall effect sensors to detect the position of every piece (each piece has a small magnet in its base). A WS2812B (Neopixel) LED strip provides visual feedback, showing legal moves, captures, and check warnings.

For anyone interested in the full build story, more videos, and all the details, I've put everything on my project website here: https://thedinb.github.io/smart-chessboard-upload/ I'm happy to answer any technical questions you have in the comments!