Monster Chess - One Game

[nophishing1]

0:24 -0:33 ? Note, the pawn is the ONLY chess piece that cannot move backwards

[jfma339]

I like it. That is amazing. Btw what happens if you pick up the king with your hand?

[Gamespflow]

how would you get the pieces to move

[masterbuilder71]

i played a game at maker fair once

[kruemel79]

It's amazing!!! WOW!! Where can I order this one?

Great work..better than my Novag 2Robot ;)

[ninjaspion]

It takes forever to play! 8 moves in 5 minutes?! It's ok to test and have fun, but I can't wait these robots to walk

[blazinblue777]

teach me your ways

[ImaginaryMdA]

wow, this is amazing!!!

you're just about to invent wizzard's chess!

Anyway, such a shame the slain don't magically dissapear,

or maybe a trapdoor system would make them dissapear soon enough?

(getting them back would be a bit of a problem though, I reckon, but maybe you magicians could work that out?)

[dracoblitz1111]

How do the king and rook castle?

[91FroSt91]

This is actually brilliant o_o

I wanna play that xD

Thanks for sharing this :)

[videomaster635]

must be a long game

[sixty9fordkiller]

I would love to see either the queen or bishop travel diagonally multiple squares

[mrbigbumface]

You really think about manufacturing that

[Boe6Eod7Nty]

insane!

[tornadonoob1]

How mush can I buy this for you within a price range of 5 cents american money?

[Theultimateprime]

you should ad some kind of jump-jack for the knight so the y can jump over pieces

[Carlyndra]

I saw this in Popular Science, and had to look this up!

I wondered about how the Knight would move XD

This would be so awesome in a totally geektastic/nerderific way!

[omachiyogi]

Is it possible to move as many pieces as possible during resetting of the board to minimise the time taken to reset?

[hassenplug]

@omachiyogi The PC uses Bluetooth to communicate with the pieces, and BT only allows 7 connections at a time.

[kingnor2]

This is fairly bad ass.

[TheL3goGuy]

this is so awesome

[Prancingwolf7]

WOW, gotta love a limitless budget!

[critic2o5]

the knight is busting a move!

[RicoWorried1]

Epic cool amazing wicked awesome genius

[LadyRoyce]

I WANT A SET LIKE THIS! WAY COOL! What is the cost for a set like this OR is there blue prints and a parts list for it? Also. Ithere a smaller ver. of this?

[veselin2]

Very well

[BeccaThursfield]

the horses feet are creepy when they move like that :o

[xDarkxJonx]

that prob cost a crazy amound of money for legos.

[grahambhg]

I'd like to see them castle.

[Lzibbah]

Great idea, but it can be improved a lot. I noticed that the pieces had to rotate to go either back or forth. Idea: make it go backwards.

And I also noticed that resetting the pieces takes a really long time. Another idea for that is to let the backrow pieces go outside the board. (I saw that an action could let multiple pieces act at once, so maybe an idea to let them ride behind eachother when you reset the pieces?)

[blackcatcatcat]

Awesome!

[gyrrep]

I love the way the pawns rotate in place to make way for the bishop! Very impressive work.

[Madmonkeythegreat]

OMG! That must cost alot.

[wolfcat1998]

What has science wrought? :O

[Antrikshy]

This is just AMAZING! Great work. How much time did you spend making this? I want one. Really. If you could make them fly somehow, pieces wouldn't have to move out of the way.

[Erae007]

thought actual robots fighting chess ..;

[turreu]

I think you should sell it at a high prize for some big company's lobby or something

[LegoDude2407]

how did u make the hoarse and the king?

[KaczorowskiArtur]

Impressive indeed

[AddictiveAirsoft]

cool

[AddictiveAirsoft]

just plain awesome

[schoschie]

Would it be possible to avoid the jerkiness of motion by slowly accelerating/decelerating the motor? Maybe via PWM?

Also, a reset would be quite spectacular if as many figures as possible moved simultaneously. I realize though that would be quite a hard nut to crack.

Otherwise, brilliant. You guys are crazy.

[nuclearthelab]

brilliant :)

[Trihedralguy]

i could just see testing this would could get crazy at times if the robots started doing things unexpectedly.

[Jaychra]

@Trihedralguy That would be kinda funny xP

[hassenplug]

@Trihedralguy That only happened once...

[squelver]

It's great, i like chess and this is realy chess :D

[ShaiHuIud]

kick ass guys! and loved how the line of pawns open way for the bishop at 2:40.

great work!

(and i really hope some day ill be able to play with 1 of those)

[yellowdudette]

Great idea with the coloured squares on the chessboard. And I had to giggle at the knight's moving legs. I noticed at one point (during reset) some of the pieces moved back and forth without rotation. Perhaps that could be implemented during the game (ex. with the pawns making way for the knight) to save a bit of time?

Overall, this was interesting and must have been fun (after all the hard work)

[hassenplug]

@yellowdudette We are working on a few refinements to speed up the movement. We do have code in the robots to allow them to drive "backwards" to get back into place. Good ideas. Thanks

[irvinvs05yahoo]

wow cool i want to play

[Omegaeghas1]

how many peices did it take to make this?

[CharlesGalofre]

i love how the captured pieces scroll outside the board.

[Dominosteine42]

This is clearly one of the coolest things I've ever watched on Youtube!

Congratulations!

[leikomolli]

i LOVE you

[SWATSeargeant]

there should be a knight riding the horse, other wise looks good

[Legomann205]

Do they know where to move on their own?

[Highstar25]

but can it do castleing?

[hassenplug]

@Highstar25 Yes. The rook generally moves off the board and behind the king.

[lynnhix]

what happens when a second pawn is promoted to queen?

[hassenplug]

@lynnhix The pawn is only replaced by a queen, if one is available. Otherwise, the pawn remains.

[stoddcrew]

@lynnhix it turns into a transformer

[Extnoob]

This makes regular chess look exciting.

It's an awful lot of trouble... for chess...

[krathar]

It's like fighting against the computer. Wait, it is.

[grohl666]

Love this, especially the design of the horses.

[Silverjda]

HOLY SHIT REAL DALEKS!!! YOUR GONNA GET US ALL KILLED!!!!

[xbxmoney]

Black/Red FTW!!

[huitukaiu9]

it looks like harry potter

[zhelle0990]

it's great... but the pieces are like.. surrendering when eaten.. or rather escaping.. ahahhaha.. the excitement are lessen XD

[gussdeblod]

mindstorm is so expensive that I couldn't even buy the basic set, and you managed to have all of these ? amazing.

The result is amazing, it works so well, Very impressive, great job!

[FenrirIceKing]

I particularly enjoyed when the Bishop was going to move and the pawns stepped aside slightly. Great job!

[20000914]

I knever thought chess could be so high tech.

[Syeno]

Are those legos?

[bbonahoom]

@Syeno Yes. Over 100,000 pieces and 38 of the Mindstorms NXT controllers to make the entire game

[kingedward001]

so slow..  this will take forever to finish......

[AdamBadadem]

Wizarding Chess

[Zarzsama]

KNIGHT TO H3!!

[PuririNd]

This is incredibly awesome! Awesome execution of a very cool concept!

[MrSimon510]

the only downside is that there isnt a cool ass way of taking a enemies pieces....if they can attack or something then it would be epic

[MacnCooley]

Listen to Cooley Mac'n

[mallowman12]

And i assume this is just one big programmed chess game within each piece that is synchronized with the rest of the pieces?

[bbonahoom]

@mallowman12 It is not a pre-programmed game. It can be played human vs human or human vs computer.

[mallowman12]

@bbonahoom Interesting, thanks.

[dotdotdashMIKE]

nice work bro

[PrivateSlacker]

I can see after the novelty wearing off that the waiting will get old really fast.

Like when "Battle Chess" came out, it was fun to watch at first. But after an hour I went back to minimal graphics to save time.

[bbonahoom]

@PrivateSlacker You are probably right. That is why it will go to shows where people are cycling through and not standing there watching it all day long. It isn't a game we will use at home in lieu of a normal chess set

[staphinfection]

I'm guessing all the nerds are jerking off to this video... I find it really boring and kind of a waste of time.

[BlackOpsDelta]

cool



[bbonahoom]

In case anyone thinks we are all nuts for having created the Monster Chess game; yes, we are. But it is a fun kind of insanity. The creativity and engineering required to create the game is just the tip of the iceburg. We have so many more ideas to incorporate that we just didn't have the time to do (yet). So, it will be a fun project to continute working on. Thanks for all the great comments.

[ZiggyZoko]

Pretty impractical, but still quite amazing!

[IMN666]

this would be cool for like a chess tournament. have like some kind of magnetized board and pieces that the players use, and have this on the ground in front of the audience

[PokemonXoxo]

this game of chess would take forever to play

[Eddyble]

quite a feat of engineering and innovation :) props

[Kiephaan]

or you can just play on your computer..

[bbonahoom]

@Kiephaan But, it wouldn't take an hour to set the computer up to play the game. What fun is that?

[hndrk]

Incredible waste of time. The movement needs to be optimized badly

[hassenplug]

@hndrk You're right, Youtube can be an incredibly fun waste of time.

But, I think the movement was already optimized badly. We're working on something better.

[bbonahoom]

@hndrk ...Creating the chess is part of a hobby. So, by definition, it is for fun and since we had fun creating it, it is not a waste of time. Some people would say that spending our time looking at videos on you tube and making comments is a waste of time. Yet, here we are :)

[hassenplug]

@hndrk by fake, you mean it doesn't really exist?

[henhen7890]

@hassenplug lol no hes just jealous he doesnt have this cause its pretty cool and he watches too much raywilliamjohnson :P

[redneckcaseyjones]

its alive!!!

[iamredddd]

impressive

[ThePdocta]

SO COOL

[darkspy123]

what a waste of money XD

[eatpoopdrinkpee]

it is incredible. but are you sure people will like it and big company will hire you and you can make money by doing this?

[ThePdocta]

@eatpoopdrinkpee come on, it doesn't matter if he can make money off of it. it's a cool, creative idea. sometimes you gotta waste time doing crazy things

[hassenplug]

@ThePdocta Glad some people get it. :)

[Brettah31]

@hassenplug This appeals greatly to my engineering aesthetics!

[Highstar25]

@eatpoopdrinkpee well, if you say this is a prototype, a smaller but similar product could be popular. They could even brand it as harry potter wizards chess XD

[eyenuh300]

What do they do when you castle?

[hassenplug]

@eyenuh300 The castle move is pretty much like any other move. The computer looks at all pieces that need to be moved, and defines a list of clearing moves to get the pieces where they need to be.

There is enough room around the edge, so normally the rook can simply move off the edge and around the king.

[yamac614]

Amazing. Great job. I wish they play online and stream it.

[k2batman]

Just WIN!!!

[dustball3010]

WOW! how much it cost? did this project got sponsored?I can't believe you inserted a motor for each pieces for RC. It's cool but seriously not practical at all with extravagant cost and man power

Let's check if out CheckNetwork and Jrobichess dudes approve of this for their next videos.

[xnyczscx]

longggggggg game...

[MrFlipske]

can another piece make way for a piece that is moving out of the way of a different piece?

[hassenplug]

@MrFlipske The move routine is recursive, so any number of pieces can be moved.

[thedetective22]

stupidity 

[TheKillaKing17]

way to much work than what it is worth

[Psychlist1972]

Pawn to Bishop: Exterminate! Exterminate!

[ox508]

@Psychlist1972

dr. who reference?

if so...

WIN!

[Psychlist1972]

@ox508 :)

[PooK1ng]

I LOVE IT WHEN THE KNIGHTS MOVE THEIR LITTLE LEGS LOL.

[Truepatriot2010]

Amazing. How long did this take to build? It's incredible.

[EyefromTexas]

lol the king and queen are like fat people on scooters in Walmart :)

[legomaniacman]

I don't know what to say :O

I wonder how much it cost to make this though

[robin2thek]

that is awesome!

[FirajaNinja]

So there's a camera underneath each piece which will analyze the 4 square marking on the board.

What kind of logic did you implement for them to navigate around?

[hassenplug]

@FirajaNinja Each piece has four color sensors facing down. The logic comes from a standard chess engine.

[kwanman7]

this is incredible, but as for after the pieces are taken i have a suggestion. wouldnt it be easier if the back row pieces will move off the board and stop at the back of its respective column so the game can be restarted fast as they only have to move forward one step each?

[hassenplug]

@kwanman7 The pieces are moved to the side that captured them. The same way you normally would if you were actually playing.

[Stuntastik30]

Pretty cool but it would have been better if when a players piece is taken, the approaching piece should bump the the other piece and have an LED light or something to show that piece has been taken. and then it drives off. having the piece drive off before the play happens looks a bid odd and anti-climactic, to me at least. cool though.

[ravensrock86]

$30000 worth of legos....one of the most epic scenes i have ever witnessed

[lollypopdude]

That is amazing! Good work!

[berrykerry789]

ahh.... this must have cost a lot :D

[z1ph0n3]

Creepy but GREAT!

[LangerJan]

Very impressive!

How does the knight move if the board around it is full with other pieces? Do they all make way in a certain order? Or does the knight move in the way in which a minimum of pieces needs to be moved?

[hassenplug]

@LangerJan When the knight makes a move, it always moves 2 squares, then 1, or 1 square, then 2. The PC software will clear other pieces out of the knights way, and it will try to clear as few as possible.

[LangerJan]

@hassenplug

And what if pieces, which have to make way are surrounded itself? Does this algorithm go all the way down to the best solution of waymaking?

As a chessplayer and a NXT fan, respect for your work

[hassenplug]

@LangerJan Yes, the routine is recursive, so it will move as many pieces as are required. And, it will rate different paths, using a number of parameters.

[TheOverheardNerd]

this reminds me of wizards chess from harry potter. Great Project!

[sholtob]

do they all comunicate or use lots off timers, its incredible