Project :: ECE 445 - Senior Design Laboratory

Project

#	Title	Team Members	TA	Documents	Sponsor
49	Move Displaying Chess Board	Jeanjuella Tipan Matthew Trela Tim Chen	Wenjing Song	design_document1.pdf proposal1.pdf
	# Move Displaying Chess Board Team Members: - Matthew Trela (mtrela2) - Tim Chen (taianc2) - Jeanjuella Tipan (jtipa2) # Problem Chess is a game with a high barrier to entry and often the hardest part of the game for kids to pick up is how the pieces move, where a piece can move, and if a move is legal. Existing boards that tackle this problem are very expensive and not a practical option for an elementary or middle school chess club. # Solution A physical chess board which shows all legal moves for a piece once it is picked up. The movement of pieces will be detected with a sensor array of reed switches and a board state in memory. The squares will be lit up by an addressable strip of LED lights cut into 8 equal sections and daisy chained together. This chessboard will also optionally display the best move with a small chess engine in the MCU’s flash memory. The chess board will include a UI to turn best moves on and off, to handle the edge case of promoting to something besides a queen, and to display information like if an illegal move is played. # Solution Components ## Subsystem 1, Piece Detection Array This subsystem detects the location of each piece using magnets attached to the bottom of the pieces and an array of 64 reed switches. Since the microcontroller can not handle 64 separate sensors we will use 4 I2C GPIO expanders. - Reed Switches: Standex-Meder Electronics SW GP560/15-20 AT - Magnets: Magnet Applications N42P062062 - I2C 16 input GPIO expander: Microchip Technology MCP23017-E/ML ## Subsystem 2, LED Move Display This subsystem provides feedback to the user. An addressable LED strip is placed under the board in 8 segments, one for each rank. The segments will be connected with clip connectors for replacing each segment when necessary. When a piece is lifted as detected by subsystem 1, the MCU calculates the legal moves and sends a signal to the LEDs to illuminate target squares in a specified color (for example: green for legal moves, red for capturable piece). - Addressable LED strip: SEZO WS2812B ECO LED Strip Light 16.4 FT - 3Pin LED Strip Connector: DFRobot FIT0861 ## Subsystem 3, Microcontroller and UI The microcontroller will handle all of the logic of our chess system. There will be a simple control loop which polls every sensor so see if the board state has changed. If a piece has been picked up, the microcontroller uses the current board state to see what piece was picked up, what its legal moves are, and then controls the LED strip accordingly. We will use logic to check for error or desync and have a recovery protocol through the UI if detected. This control loop can be interrupted by input from the UI like to turn on best moves. UI is a monochrome OLED screen with some buttons for selecting options. When best moves are on, the board puts the current state into a small chess engine locally stored in the MCU and displays the best move using the LEDs. This happens every time the board state changes. - MCU: ESP32-WROOM-32-N4 - OLED Display: UCTRONICS 0.96 Inch OLED Module 12864 128x64 ## Subsystem 4, Power supply A portable power supply is used to power the LEDs, sensors, microcontroller, and UI display. A capacitor prevents sudden surges or dips in from crashing the microcontroller. - Power bank: VOLTME Portable charger, 10000mAh 5V/3A - Capacitor: Chemi-Con ESMG160ETD102MJ16S # Criterion For Success Describe high-level goals that your project needs to achieve to be effective. These goals need to be clearly testable and not subjective. - LEDs can be selectively turned on by the MCU for all 64 squares - Move display and best move display can be turned on and off with the UI controls - All legal moves are accurately displayed by LEDs, including rules such as en passente, castling, and the first move of pawns - Pieces can be detected accurately when lifted off, being displayed on the UI display - Detect pieces picked up and show legal moves in under 1 second - Display the best move in under 3 seconds - We can detect and recover from two pieces on the same square - We can detect and recover from multiple pieces being picked up at the same time and switched # Alternatives Existing solutions include commercial products that cost around $300 or more. They perform almost the exact same functions as what we propose to do. It is hard to determine the exact sensor method other boards use but we saw RFID and other more extensive methods. Our implementation attempts to use the simplest possible sensing apparatus and make up the difference in hardware. There does not exist a product that is both affordable and offers the functionality of displaying moves on the board.

Title

Team Members

Documents

Sponsor

Move Displaying Chess Board

Jeanjuella Tipan
Matthew Trela
Tim Chen

Wenjing Song

design_document1.pdf
proposal1.pdf

# Move Displaying Chess Board

Team Members:
- Matthew Trela (mtrela2)
- Tim Chen (taianc2)
- Jeanjuella Tipan (jtipa2)

# Problem

Chess is a game with a high barrier to entry and often the hardest part of the game for kids to pick up is how the pieces move, where a piece can move, and if a move is legal. Existing boards that tackle this problem are very expensive and not a practical option for an elementary or middle school chess club.

# Solution

A physical chess board which shows all legal moves for a piece once it is picked up. The movement of pieces will be detected with a sensor array of reed switches and a board state in memory. The squares will be lit up by an addressable strip of LED lights cut into 8 equal sections and daisy chained together. This chessboard will also optionally display the best move with a small chess engine in the MCU’s flash memory. The chess board will include a UI to turn best moves on and off, to handle the edge case of promoting to something besides a queen, and to display information like if an illegal move is played.

# Solution Components

## Subsystem 1, Piece Detection Array

This subsystem detects the location of each piece using magnets attached to the bottom of the pieces and an array of 64 reed switches. Since the microcontroller can not handle 64 separate sensors we will use 4 I2C GPIO expanders.

- Reed Switches: Standex-Meder Electronics SW GP560/15-20 AT
- Magnets: Magnet Applications N42P062062
- I2C 16 input GPIO expander: Microchip Technology MCP23017-E/ML

## Subsystem 2, LED Move Display

This subsystem provides feedback to the user. An addressable LED strip is placed under the board in 8 segments, one for each rank. The segments will be connected with clip connectors for replacing each segment when necessary. When a piece is lifted as detected by subsystem 1, the MCU calculates the legal moves and sends a signal to the LEDs to illuminate target squares in a specified color (for example: green for legal moves, red for capturable piece).

- Addressable LED strip: SEZO WS2812B ECO LED Strip Light 16.4 FT
- 3Pin LED Strip Connector: DFRobot FIT0861

## Subsystem 3, Microcontroller and UI

The microcontroller will handle all of the logic of our chess system. There will be a simple control loop which polls every sensor so see if the board state has changed. If a piece has been picked up, the microcontroller uses the current board state to see what piece was picked up, what its legal moves are, and then controls the LED strip accordingly. We will use logic to check for error or desync and have a recovery protocol through the UI if detected. This control loop can be interrupted by input from the UI like to turn on best moves. UI is a monochrome OLED screen with some buttons for selecting options. When best moves are on, the board puts the current state into a small chess engine locally stored in the MCU and displays the best move using the LEDs. This happens every time the board state changes.

- MCU: ESP32-WROOM-32-N4
- OLED Display: UCTRONICS 0.96 Inch OLED Module 12864 128x64

## Subsystem 4, Power supply

A portable power supply is used to power the LEDs, sensors, microcontroller, and UI display. A capacitor prevents sudden surges or dips in from crashing the microcontroller.

- Power bank: VOLTME Portable charger, 10000mAh 5V/3A
- Capacitor: Chemi-Con ESMG160ETD102MJ16S

# Criterion For Success

Describe high-level goals that your project needs to achieve to be effective. These goals need to be clearly testable and not subjective.

- LEDs can be selectively turned on by the MCU for all 64 squares
- Move display and best move display can be turned on and off with the UI controls
- All legal moves are accurately displayed by LEDs, including rules such as en passente, castling, and the first move of pawns
- Pieces can be detected accurately when lifted off, being displayed on the UI display
- Detect pieces picked up and show legal moves in under 1 second
- Display the best move in under 3 seconds
- We can detect and recover from two pieces on the same square
- We can detect and recover from multiple pieces being picked up at the same time and switched

# Alternatives

Existing solutions include commercial products that cost around $300 or more. They perform almost the exact same functions as what we propose to do. It is hard to determine the exact sensor method other boards use but we saw RFID and other more extensive methods. Our implementation attempts to use the simplest possible sensing apparatus and make up the difference in hardware. There does not exist a product that is both affordable and offers the functionality of displaying moves on the board.

Featured Project

# Musical Hand

Team Members:

- Ramesey Foote (rgfoote2)

- Michelle Zhang (mz32)

- Thomas MacDonald (tcm5)

# Problem

Musical instruments come in all shapes and sizes; however, transporting instruments often involves bulky and heavy cases. Not only can transporting instruments be a hassle, but the initial purchase and maintenance of an instrument can be very expensive. We would like to solve this problem by creating an instrument that is lightweight, compact, and low maintenance.

# Solution

Our project involves a wearable system on the chest and both hands. The left hand will be used to dictate the pitches of three “strings” using relative angles between the palm and fingers. For example, from a flat horizontal hand a small dip in one finger is associated with a low frequency. A greater dip corresponds to a higher frequency pitch. The right hand will modulate the generated sound by adding effects such as vibrato through lateral motion. Finally, the brains of the project will be the central unit, a wearable, chest-mounted subsystem responsible for the audio synthesis and output.

Our solution would provide an instrument that is lightweight and easy to transport. We will be utilizing accelerometers instead of flex sensors to limit wear and tear, which would solve the issue of expensive maintenance typical of more physical synthesis methods.

# Solution Components

The overall solution has three subsystems; a right hand, left hand, and a central unit.

## Subsystem 1 - Left Hand

The left hand subsystem will use four digital accelerometers total: three on the fingers and one on the back of the hand. These sensors will be used to determine the angle between the back of the hand and each of the three fingers (ring, middle, and index) being used for synthesis. Each angle will correspond to an analog signal for pitch with a low frequency corresponding to a completely straight finger and a high frequency corresponding to a completely bent finger. To filter out AC noise, bypass capacitors and possibly resistors will be used when sending the accelerometer signals to the central unit.

## Subsystem 2 - Right Hand

The right subsystem will use one accelerometer to determine the broad movement of the hand. This information will be used to determine how much of a vibrato there is in the output sound. This system will need the accelerometer, bypass capacitors (.1uF), and possibly some resistors if they are needed for the communication scheme used (SPI or I2C).

## Subsystem 3 - Central Unit

The central subsystem utilizes data from the gloves to determine and generate the correct audio. To do this, two microcontrollers from the STM32F3 series will be used. The left and right hand subunits will be connected to the central unit through cabling. One of the microcontrollers will receive information from the sensors on both gloves and use it to calculate the correct frequencies. The other microcontroller uses these frequencies to generate the actual audio. The use of two separate microcontrollers allows for the logic to take longer, accounting for slower human response time, while meeting needs for quicker audio updates. At the output, there will be a second order multiple feedback filter. This will get rid of any switching noise while also allowing us to set a gain. This will be done using an LM358 Op amp along with the necessary resistors and capacitors to generate the filter and gain. This output will then go to an audio jack that will go to a speaker. In addition, bypass capacitors, pull up resistors, pull down resistors, and the necessary programming circuits will be implemented on this board.

# Criterion For Success

The minimum viable product will consist of two wearable gloves and a central unit that will be connected together via cords. The user will be able to adjust three separate notes that will be played simultaneously using the left hand, and will be able to apply a sound effect using the right hand. The output audio should be able to be heard audibly from a speaker.

Project Videos

Musical Hand Demo