Many touchscreens depend on warmth, so you could glue coins to the bottoms, hold the coin against your palm for a bit, then make the move. If it's a different kind then you may have problems as the software may not know what to do with 32 touches at once.
Digital meets tactile
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Oct 20, 2012
0
#3
Actually.. For the iPad, it's about conductivity to stimulate the touch. I've figured out the "tech" but I'm just wondering if anyone is interested in the concept of physical pieces for their iPad to interact with apps? Basically each piece is virtually a "stylus" that can be used to around the board
Well like I say, I'm not sure what the software is going to do with way more touch-points than they probably planned for.
Oct 20, 2012
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#5
It might be a nice idea , especially with saving the moves as a pgn which is already in most chess apps anyways. They already make kid games for the ipad with a physical "pieces" that you use on the touch screen ( I'm thinking of the cars 2 game)
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Oct 20, 2012
0
#6
I wondered the same thing. As long as you aren't touching and tapping more than 1 piece at a time, you're fine. Again, this is my experience on the iPad. Basically, using the same technique you'd use in controlling your standard chess computer, it works the same way. I'm modeling a set to work with th chess.com app. The board seems to be pretty standard in terms of scale when oriented in portrait.
I'll try to put a little video together to demo the idea.
Oct 23, 2012
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#7
Ok so I finished a rough set of pieces for a prototype. Basically a picked up a few dollar store plastic chess sets and cut a few up to see what scale might work best. After figuring out that, I turned to the "tech" part. Using a combo of conductive foam and some copper wire, I was able to primitively rig up a few touch capable pieces. They aren't glamorous but they work and prove the point that this endeavor isn't completely stupid.
I'll post a few links when I get a chance.
My initial reaction is that if the pieces could be molded out of a conductive resin and scaled perfectly for the chess.com app, I think this could seriously be a fun little accessory for chess on your iPad!
Oct 26, 2012
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#8
Ok folks! So heres a short video demo of what I had in mind.
Be kind, i used my iphone for the video and of course, this is a rough prototype.
Oct 26, 2012
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#10
It's a good start. I saw the plastic cars 2 pieces at target in the electronics area on clearance the other day and I think it uses the same principle for using it on top of an iPad for its game. Maybe go pick one up and take it apart to see how they got the conductivity to work
Neat idea, dtrasatti.
Pretty neat idea. The conductive resin piece set idea is good, but that wouldn't be a cheap or trivial endeavor. Maybe use Kickstarter to crowdfund production?
Oct 27, 2012
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#13
Yeah I was thinking that.. But do you think there's a market for it? A solid piece of conductive resin molded into pieces shouldn't cost much. This will def need more r&d
The resin pieces won't be too expensive to produce once you have the molds. It is making the production molds that will be expensive. When I looked into making custom chess pieces, the cost was around $100-200 per piece in order to get a bronze master and a production mold made. As for the market for it, that I have no feel for. I don't know how many players are just itching to add physical pieces to the iPad experience. The turn-it-on-and-play/turn-it-off-and-go convenience of chess on such a device is somewhat undermined by having to carry, set up, and stow pieces wherever you go.
Oct 28, 2012
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#15
That's a good point, however novag and saitek still seem to be selling their computer boards. Might be an interesting alternative for chess computer enthusiasts.
this might be an easy way to make conductive metal pieces from 3d printing
http://3dtopo.com/lostPLA/
@dtrasatti: this post is a bit old. Any update? I'd be very interested by your idea
Apr 8, 2016
0
#18
I wanted to reboot this discussion a little and share the prototype/mock up of this I made. Take a look at the link and let me know what you guys think!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=861og6GFzno
Good evening Dante, I am getting an iPad so I started thinking about what I would do w it and thought of the pieces to go w a virtual board... thanky for your work...do you have to drag the piece or your stylus whichever the case maybe in most app s for chess or can you just touch the origin space and the destination...hmmm
Jan 26, 2019
0
#20
UlyssesApp wrote:
Good evening Dante, I am getting an iPad so I started thinking about what I would do w it and thought of the pieces to go w a virtual board... thanky for your work...do you have to drag the piece or your stylus whichever the case maybe in most app s for chess or can you just touch the origin space and the destination...hmmm
YES! Please check out my kickstarter!!! You can drag or tap the pieces. NO SPECIAL APPS ARE REQUIRED. This is a UNIVERSAL touch-based accessory for android/ios tablets.
Here's the full kickstarter campaign! Come check it out!
To me, chess is best experienced with physical pieces on a chess board. There's nothing quite like feeling the weight of the pieces and moving them around the board. I love all the digital apps out there for the iPad/tablet environment.
I'm currently experimenting with creating physical pieces to interact with tablets. Does anyone think this is a viable project?
Imagine being able to setup pieces on your iPad and move them around to register moves for either online games or even just regular computer matches. I'm testing it out within the chess.com app.
Thoughts?