MONSTER CHESS
"Lego builders are becoming insane. And I enjoy that."
Follow us on Facebook: MonsterChess - Twitter: MonsterChess - email: MonsterChess - at - TeamHassenplug.org
Design Team Project Lead: Steve Hassenplug Chess Body Design: John Brost Software & PC Interface: Ron McRae (check out Ron's ATM) Move Selection Center & Showcase Event Coordination: Bryan Bonahoom Chess Clock: Jenn Wagner
		This is the main introduction video that explains how it works. "Wow, how did they make a child that tiny? He's walking on a chessboard."
This clip shows a single game being played out. It's a pretty short game, played by a chess master.
Come see it live at
Other locations will be listed here, as arrangements are made.
Quick Facts Over 100,000 LEGO® pieces 37,612 in the chess board 17,748 in the robot bases 17,114 in the bodies 22,688 in the mosaics 1,853 in the move selection center Size of board: 156ft2 (14.5m2) Took 4 people about a year to create Opponent types Human vs Human Human vs Computer Computer vs Computer  Play options  Normal chess game  Chess puzzle  Replay historical match  Programming languages used  LabVIEW for the robots  C# for the PC user interface  Interfaces with standard chess engine
Production Team We had 3 “build parties” where we built large segments of the Monster Chess project. We’d like to thank everybody involved in helping bring Monster Chess to fruition.
Drew Baldwin Maclane Baldwin Mike Baldwin Bryan Bonahoom Kathie Bonahoom John Brost Bunnie Cleland Steven Canvin Brian Davis Andrew Dykstal Heather Hassenplug Kurt Hassenplug Matt Hassenplug Steve Hassenplug Doren de Jong Jacqueline McRae Ron McRae Zoe McRae Chad Phillips Tom Phillips Barbara Price Dan Siders Jenn Wagner
We’d especially like to thank the LEGO MINDSTORMS® team for their efforts in making this a reality.
ChessBot software · Controls game to Fédération Internationale des Éches (FIDE) rules · Either color can be human or computer · Interacts with various third party chess engines using Standard Algebraic Notation (SAN) format · Currently optimized to work with “Crafty” chess engine · Save and restore board layout to/from Forsyth-Edwards Notation (FEN) record · Save and Replay games to/from Portable Game Notation (PGN) file · Load “Chess Puzzles” for players to solve · Graphical on-screen helpers highlight available moves · Battery status of individual chess pieces reported on-screen · Uses Bluetooth to communicate with individual chess pieces · Uses an enhanced and customized version of Steve Norris’ original ChessBot Additional Robot Control Functions · Calculates robot paths using a recursive square-by-square tree search · Optimizes the chosen path by assigning point values to… · the overall length of path · the number of turns · the number of border squares used · the number of occupied squares used · the ease of moving any blocking pieces · Automatically clears and restores blocking pieces if necessary · Parks captured pieces in the border zone of capturing color · Exchanges promoted pawns for a previously captured piece (where possible) · Calculates inter-move dependencies to allow multiple pieces to move simultaneously · Orients parked pieces based on current square and color · Operates piece-specific functions where appropriate (e.g. knight galloping) · Automatically resets all pieces to desired position (standard, FEN or off-board)
Nothing but hits Where are those hits coming from? http://thenxtstep.blogspot.com/2010/06/monster-chess.html http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2010/06/32-robot_nxt_chess_set.html http://gizmodo.com/5561977/100000-lego-bricks-make-for-one-hell-of-a-robotic-chess-se http://blog.electricbricks.com/en/2010/06/monster-chess/ http://www.semageek.com/monster-chess-partie-geante-d-echec-avec-des-pices-robotisees-base-de-lego/ http://www.1000steine.de/1000steine/forum2/forum_entry.php?id=197855 http://hackaday.com/2010/06/14/monster-chess/ http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/cehbe/awesome_lego_robot_monster_chessand_shit_gets/ http://dvice.com/archives/2010/06/robotic-monster.php http://mindstorms.lego.com/en-us/News/ReadMore/Default.aspx?id=193079 http://www.brothers-brick.com/2010/06/13/massive-chess-set-is-playing-for-keeps/ http://www.neatorama.com/2010/06/13/lego-robot-chess/ http://theawesomer.com/lego-monster-chess/45064/ http://www.fark.com/cgi/comments.pl?IDLink=5403513&tt=s http://www.wykop.pl/link/384592/monsater-chess-zrobotyzowane-szachy-z-lego/ http://www.instructables.com/community/Lego-Chess-Set-motorised-32k-100k-bricks/ http://www.fayerwayer.com/2010/06/ajedrez-gigante-hecho-con-100-mil-piezas-lego/ http://www.hispalug.com/foro/index.php?topic=10392.0 http://inhabitat.com/2010/06/14/monster-robot-chess-set-made-from-100000-legos/ http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-20007692-1.html http://tech-reviews.findtechnews.net/2010/06/15/monster-chess-pits-lego-bots-in-game-of-awesome/ http://www.geek.com/articles/gadgets/giant-lego-mindstorms-chessboard-fills-entire-room-20100614/ http://brian.carnell.com/articles/2010/monster-chess-large-chess-board-built-with-lego-mindstorms/ (follow the links to the ARS review for another cool story) http://www.sparwasserhq.org/monster-chess-supersizes-lego-robots-for-ultimate-geek-synergy/2010/06/15/ http://www.engadget.com/2010/06/15/monster-chess-supersizes-lego-robots-for-ultimate-geek-synergy/ http://www.geeky-gadgets.com/robotic-monster-chess-set-made-from-lego-14-06-2010/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+geeky-gadgets+(Geeky+Gadgets) http://aaron-michels.newsvine.com/_news/2010/06/14/4509498-giant-lego-mindstorms-chessboard-fills-entire-room
Sponsored by: LEGO, the LEGO logo, DUPLO, BIONICLE, MINDSTORMS, the BELVILLE, KNIGHTS’ KINGDOM and EXO-FORCE logos, the Brick and Knob configurations and the Minifigure are trademarks of the LEGO Group. © 2010 The LEGO Group. All rights reserved. and the LabVIEW logo are trademarks of National Instruments.
Other Team Hassenplug stuff here