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The AI component of Chesster was developed through understanding written AI code, making adjustments, and using it to program the LED and buttons on the board.

For more information about our software, see the chessboard below. Click on the labels in the cream-colored squares to learn more.




Here is a drawing of our LED mapping. The indexing allowed us to implement our LEDs as a one row array in our software.
  • The AI we're using is created by H.G. Muller and ported to the Arduino by Diego Cueva. This AI was preferred because of its small size (< 2kb) which allowed us not to overload the Arduino's memory causing crashing errors.

  • The chess AI utilizes the minimax algorithm that looks ahead at each piece's moves and scores them based on how much of a positional or material advantage that the move gains, and then returns the most optimal move.

  • In order to cut the search for the most optimal move down, the algorithm uses Alpha-Beta pruning which avoids checking moves and branches that are already worse than the current searched moves.

  • The chess AI checks for valid/invalid moves and winning/losing the game which we display to the user through the use of LEDs
Here is a map of our board indexes. It corresponds with our LEX map.
Here is a photo of our software being tested with Chesster's electrical circuit.
Mylinh and Justin hard at work testing software.