Chess playing robot

Is the machine playing itself or a human being?

If it's machine-on-machine, the assumed correct starting positions could be used together with a memory of each pieces current position as they are moved.

If you are playing a human there a number of different approaches. Are you able to modify the board?

So the idea is to have the robot playing against a human

"Are you able to modify the board?" everything can be modified :3

Here's a scetsh of the program (not a actual code, just planing how the code is going to be):

Defines all the pieces by ther default location #Example King_White= D,1

Camera (or som kind of sensor) #scan all the pieces and findes ther location = old

#just moved a piece (example a pawn_white 1 step forward)

Camera (or som kind of sensor) #scan all the pieces and findes ther location = new

Compear old and new and gives a output like: pawn_white b,2= false pawn_white b,3 =true

Output goes to a chess playing program.

The output of the chess playing program will be example: pawn_black b,7 = false pawn_black b,8= true

If pawn_black b,7 = false && pawn_black b,8= true;

digitalWrite(13, HIGH);

  delay(1000);

  digitalWrite(13, LOW):

  delay(1000);

#The robotic hand moves in some kind of position, pics up the piece,  and moves it to b,8

Hope you understand sorry my bad english

I have no experience of using cameras with the Arduino, so can't advise wether there is enough processing power on the boards. The approach I was thinking was using an 8x8 grid of sensors to detect the presence of chess pieces. If a piece is lifted, it's type is known (e.g. pawn) and the new position can be determined by the newly covered sensor. This can be used to confirm that human moves are valid and wether a robots piece has been taken.

Hm :3 that sounds like a smart idea, but then i will have a problem, that my arduino has to registrer 64 inputs  :/

Found a way to solve this problem by using a "parallel to serial shift register"

http://www.arduino.cc/en/Tutorial/ShiftIn

Eny idea what kind of sensors i shud be using?

I could make some kind of switch, by using 2 contact plates on eatch square, and a metal plate unther neath the pieces, but i think it wont look that nice..

Something like this could be placed into the board. http://uk.farnell.com/honeywell-s-c/hlc1395-001/sensor-infrared-reflective-4ch/dp/1796893

Then standard pieces could deb used.

If you wire the anodes (Pin 1) into rows and the photodetectors (Pin 3) into columns, you could scan the inputs row by row to determine presence at each point.

Does that make sense?

Sorry, didn't quite understand you :/

Did you mean like matrixing? :3

Yes. If you arrange the sensors in an 8x8 grid. Wire every Pin 2 to GND, Each Pin 1 in rows, and each Pin 3 in columns, you can light up each row at a time, then read the on/off values on the column connections. So a piece at position C3 would be read on the third column input only when the third Arduino output was activated.

Very much like a matrix.

Thanks for your help