check mate

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Why use a mouse when you have a voice?
Inspired by Apple’s chess program, we attempted to create a voice initiated chess game in which one could play without having to worry about using a finger. Using a combination of micro-controllers and voice recognition chips, we managed to create one where two players can play this game in real time. The chessboard will be shown onto a TV screen realtime, where two users can play chess with each other using only their voices. We will show how this was created through several different perspectives: in software, hardware, initialization, and as a whole. Hopefully, you can enjoy this program as much as we did.



Working as a whole
Our project depends on the usage of several different chips working in harmony. Therefore, it would be critical for the Atmel microcontroller to manage each function without any major difficulty. In this section, we discuss the rationale of the project, then discuss the high-level idea behind the project. Also, we examine possible hardware/software considerations in the project and discuss the relationship of our design with existing standards, patents, copyrights, and trademarks.

Rationale
Getting the idea from Apple’s chess algorithm, which uses a voice recognition algorithm to run its programming, we felt that we could try to do the same using a significantly less powerful chip. However, considering the amount of memory required for the microcontroller to controller the algorithms required for chess as well as run a digital representation of the board, we would have to limit the number of functions that we could implement. Unlike our original plan, we found that it was impossible with the amount of memory in the Atmel chip to run a one-player, computer AI driven algorithm. As a result, there was no more need to run a voice output system, thus not requiring the need for a voice synthesizer.



Relationship with Standards, Existing Patents, Copyrights, and Trademarks
Although the original idea was motivated from Apple’s chess algorithm, we did not reverse engineer their algorithm. Also, considering the sophistical algorithm Apple employs, it would be simply impossible for use to replicate that using the Atmel microcontroller and the HM2007.

Other than the unlikely collision with Apple’s existing algorithm, we do not foresee any possible conflicts with existing standards, patents, copyrights, and trademarks. Chess is a very old and common game, and it would be unlikely that anyone would have sole ownership over it.



Working as a whole
Our project depends on the usage of several different chips working in harmony. Therefore, it would be critical for the Atmel microcontroller to manage each function without any major difficulty. In this section, we discuss the rationale of the project, then discuss the high-level idea behind the project. Also, we examine possible hardware/software considerations in the project and discuss the relationship of our design with existing standards, patents, copyrights, and trademarks.