Ouija Chess

Inspiration

Our inspiration for this project came from our shared love of chess and the experience of playing both over-the-board and online. We wanted to bridge the gap between the physical and digital chess worlds by creating a board that could bring online moves — whether made by real players or an AI chess engine — into the real world through physical movement.

What it does

Ouija Chess allows users to play chess on a physical board while interacting with moves generated by an AI or remote online opponents. The system automatically translates digital moves into real-world piece movement, creating a seamless hybrid experience between traditional chess and modern technology.

How we built it

We designed a physical chessboard with magnets embedded in both the board and the chess pieces. Underneath the board, a gantry system moves along two axes and magnetically engages with the pieces to move them across the board.

A camera mounted above the board uses OpenCV to detect and read the board state in real time. The detected moves are processed and relayed to an Arduino Uno, which controls the gantry system and executes the corresponding physical movements.

In addition, we built a control panel that allows users to manage the game system, including starting games, selecting modes, and controlling gameplay interactions.

By combining computer vision, embedded systems, and mechanical design, we created a system that bridges digital chess logic with real-world physical movement.

Challenges we ran into

Having a measurment error for our 3d printed chess board and no access to a 3d printer, we had to improvise and design a chessboard with the limited resources we had on hand.

Since our chess pieces are magnetic, having them collide would result in the pieces sticking together, so we worked on a solution by creating a pathfinding system such that the pieces can move across the board without colliding into one another.