Project

# Title Team Members TA Documents Sponsor
67 ChessExpress: The Voice-Controlled, Automatic Chessboard
Adithya Rajan
Dean Biskup
Chi Zhang design_document2.pdf
design_document3.pdf
design_document4.pdf
design_document5.pdf
final_paper1.pdf
proposal2.pdf
proposal1.pdf
# Team
Adithya Rajan (adithya2), Dean Biskup (dbiskup2)

# Problem
There are many people who would like to play chess with players online, but would prefer not to stare at a screen and utilize online chess interfaces, instead preferring a physical board. Some people may also want to play on a physical board but cannot physically interact with the board and it's pieces due to disability.

# Solution Overview
We propose an automatic chessboard that can move the pieces automatically using an electromagnet and stepper motors, with WiFi capability that can allow it to connect with another board anywhere in the world. The board will also have speech recognition capabilities that allow a player to move pieces on the board with simple commands such as “A5 to D2.” This will be our primary method of input into the board. We do not plan on implementing more complex speech recognition, such as “knight to e5” or “a2… no, sorry, a3 to d3”, in the interest of keeping things feasible.

# Solution Components
## Existing Design
This project is a continuation of a project from ECE 395. As the project exists currently, it has a physical board (⅛” acrylic) with an electromagnet running underneath the board that is able to move a piece from one square to another. The board has no knowledge of the game “chess”, and only moves things from one (x,y) position to another. Also, the movement needs to be made more consistent, as the magnet tends to "drop" pieces while moving in the current iteration of the design, with no error detection systems. Additionally, there is currently no WiFi or microphones/speech recognition subsystems on the board, and the project currently requires a PC to do all of the logic before sending very basic commands to a microcontroller controlling the motors. We would like to change the microprocessor to a beefier one so that our solution can be self contained, and does not require an external PC connection. We also need to create a PCB incorporating all the components, as right now the basic circuit is just on a breadboard.

## Movement Subsystem
The movement subsystem involves motors and electromagnets. There are two stepper motors that move the electromagnet in the Y direction, and one that moves it in the X direction. The electromagnet will move to position itself under the piece that needs to be moved. Once it is in position, the electromagnet will be powered up and will attract the piece towards it. Then it will drag the piece on the board to its desired X-Y position, before de-energizing.

## Voice Command Subsystem
The voice-command subsystem will consist of at least a microphone. It will take in speech signals and provide them to the processor, which will do basic speech recognition, or send it out to an online library/speech recognition service through the WiFi subsystem for processing.

## WiFi Subsystem
This system allows the board to connect to the internet (using an ESP8266 or ESP32 board), enabling functionality to play with other people around the world or send speech signals out to an external speech processing service.

# Criterion for Success
This chessboard will allow for basic chess games using voice control, over the internet. The piece movement will be consistent (no pieces will fail to move to their destination). The board will also know the rules of chess as to prevent illegal moves from being performed.

# Commercial Solutions
There is a commercial solution that is very similar to ours in that it is an automatically moving chessboard that allows for online play ([SquareOff](https://squareoffnow.com/). Where our project differentiates from SquareOff is the capability for voice commands, allowing players to play without physically interacting with the board.

Interactive Proximity Donor Wall Illumination

Sungmin Jang, Anita Jung, Zheng Liu

Interactive Proximity Donor Wall Illumination

Featured Project

Team Members:

Anita Jung (anitaj2)

Sungmin Jang (sjang27)

Zheng Liu (zliu93)

Link to the idea: https://courses.engr.illinois.edu/ece445/pace/view-topic.asp?id=27710

Problem:

The Donor Wall on the southwest side of first floor in ECEB is to celebrate and appreciate everyone who helped and donated for ECEB.

However, because of poor lighting and color contrast between the copper and the wall behind, donor names are not noticed as much as they should, especially after sunset.

Solution Overview:

Here is the image of the Donor Wall:

http://buildingcampaign.ece.illinois.edu/files/2014/10/touched-up-Donor-wall-by-kurt-bielema.jpg

We are going to design and implement a dynamic and interactive illuminating system for the Donor Wall by installing LEDs on the background. LEDs can be placed behind the names to softly illuminate each name. LEDs can also fill in the transparent gaps in the “circuit board” to allow for interaction and dynamic animation.

And our project’s system would contain 2 basic modes:

Default mode: When there is nobody near the Donor Wall, the names are softly illuminated from the back of each name block.

Moving mode: When sensors detect any stimulation such as a person walking nearby, the LEDs are controlled to animate “current” or “pulses” flowing through the “circuit board” into name boards.

Depending on the progress of our project, we have some additional modes:

Pressing mode: When someone is physically pressing on a name block, detected by pressure sensors, the LEDs are controlled to

animate scattering of outgoing light, just as if a wave or light is emitted from that name block.

Solution Components:

Sensor Subsystem:

IR sensors (PIR modules or IR LEDs with phototransistor) or ultrasonic sensors to detect presence and proximity of people in front of the Donor Wall.

Pressure sensors to detect if someone is pressing on a block.

Lighting Subsystem:

A lot of LEDs is needed to be installed on the PCBs to be our lighting subsystem. These are hidden as much as possible so that people focus on the names instead of the LEDs.

Controlling Subsystem:

The main part of the system is the controlling unit. We plan to use a microprocessor to process the signal from those sensors and send signal to LEDs. And because the system has different modes, switching between them correctly is also important for the project.

Power Subsystem:

AC (Wall outlet; 120V, 60Hz) to DC (acceptable DC voltage and current applicable for our circuit design) power adapter or possible AC-DC converter circuit

Criterion for success:

Whole system should work correctly in each mode and switch between different modes correctly. The names should be highlighted in a comfortable and aesthetically pleasing way. Our project is acceptable for senior design because it contains both hardware and software parts dealing with signal processing, power, control, and circuit design with sensors.

Project Videos