Raspberry Pi 5 Chessboard Plays You Back With Magnets
A Reddit user showed off a Pi 5 chessboard that moves bot pieces with magnets, tracks your own moves and runs Stockfish, Maia3, Rodent IV and Patricia.
A Reddit user going by Refeying has shown off an automatic chessboard built around a Raspberry Pi 5, according to xda-developers.com. The board uses magnets to move pieces and registers the moves the player makes by hand.
Captured pieces are shunted to the side of the board so they can be removed more easily. The Raspberry Pi 5 connects to a Raspberry Pi Pico SKR V1.0 that controls a CoreXY system fitted with an electromagnet.
For tracking, the board carries 64 omnidirectional hall sensors mounted on 8 custom PCBs through a pin header and an IO expander. Along the side walls are momentary push buttons, a 5-inch LCD display and status LEDs.
Stockfish, Maia3, Rodent IV and Patricia currently run on the board, giving it a choice of opponents. Ongoing games are saved in Portable Game Notation format, so the board can recall game state after it has been switched off.
The creator hopes to add Lichess and Chess.com API support so play can be mirrored online.
Quick answers
What is the Raspberry Pi 5 chessboard?
It is an automatic chessboard project shown off by a Reddit user named Refeying. It uses magnets to move pieces, registers the player's own moves and shunts captured pieces to the side.
Which chess engines run on the board?
Stockfish, Maia3, Rodent IV and Patricia currently run on the board.
Will the board support Lichess and Chess.com?
Not yet. The creator hopes to add Lichess and Chess.com API support for mirrored online play.