this actually seems like a pretty neat of tech. in terms of how the joints and connections work under rotation like that. silly, yes, but if someone just randomly airmailed one to me i'd happily play around with it and admire it. they might even be able to sell a few of them since Rubik's Cubes seem to have a pretty persistently decent audience. what i want is something like this for chess: if you are playing vs. the "ai", it will move the pieces on the board like it's a player (well, more like in Harry Potter), and you can undo moves or hop into old or historical games and it will just slide the pieces around to make it work. i think i kinda have a scheme worked out, but it's very optimistic compared to my knowledge of the domain of making something like that work.
They also use totally different mechanical concepts to move the pieces. The Phantom uses an etch-a-sketch style 2 access CNC machine with a magnet head embedded in the board (I think). For the Chessnut, each of the pieces are their own little micro robot that can drive around the board surface.
Really neat to see different mechanical solutions to the same automation problem!
that is so amazing! yeah my "solution"-- yeah, let's call it that: i spent 15mins thinking about it, so now i'm an expert!-- was a lot closer to the Phantom solution... driving the pieces around on the board autonomously seems absolutely insane, and i'm here for it.
It's interesting, but I watched a couple of the videos for the games, and I'm underwhelmed.
I imagine there's more potential, and I hope they find it. But the price is way past a scratch-an-itch purchase for me.
Actual product page: https://wowcube.com/
this actually seems like a pretty neat of tech. in terms of how the joints and connections work under rotation like that. silly, yes, but if someone just randomly airmailed one to me i'd happily play around with it and admire it. they might even be able to sell a few of them since Rubik's Cubes seem to have a pretty persistently decent audience. what i want is something like this for chess: if you are playing vs. the "ai", it will move the pieces on the board like it's a player (well, more like in Harry Potter), and you can undo moves or hop into old or historical games and it will just slide the pieces around to make it work. i think i kinda have a scheme worked out, but it's very optimistic compared to my knowledge of the domain of making something like that work.
I don’t have any firsthand experience with these products but it sounds like you’re describing the Chessnut Move or Phantom Chessboard
AHHHH no way how cool is that? of course someone has already done it hahah. wow, those are both so nicely built too!
They also use totally different mechanical concepts to move the pieces. The Phantom uses an etch-a-sketch style 2 access CNC machine with a magnet head embedded in the board (I think). For the Chessnut, each of the pieces are their own little micro robot that can drive around the board surface. Really neat to see different mechanical solutions to the same automation problem!
that is so amazing! yeah my "solution"-- yeah, let's call it that: i spent 15mins thinking about it, so now i'm an expert!-- was a lot closer to the Phantom solution... driving the pieces around on the board autonomously seems absolutely insane, and i'm here for it.