One of my (many) chess sets

A lot of people collect things-- stamps, coins, baseball cards, cars, debts, stocks, socks... you name it, most likely someone, somewhere collects it. I made a decision a long time ago that I would collect chess sets.

Now, I also like building and making things (part of the reason I am an engineer...). So, obviously, it was inevitable that I would make at least one chess set. Browsing the internet, I'd come across a few different "nuts and bolts" chess sets, but they all seemed like they compromised in some way. Usually, there were a few pieces that seemed like quite a stretch interpretively. Or maybe a piece seemed stretched literally; there's a normal sort of height pattern for pieces in relation to one another, and a lot of the hardware piece sets didn't do a good job of following that.

So I set out to make my own, better "nuts and bolts" chess set. As with any good design project, I started out by defining the requirements:

• The chess pieces will conform to standard chess piece height conventions (more on this at the bottom)
• The chess pieces will conform to key chess piece features (it should be obvious what each piece is)
• The chess pieces will be made of unaltered hardware (with the allowable exception of cutting all-thread to length)
• The chess pieces will be disassembly-friendly.
• The chess pieces will use no glues, welding, or solder.
• The two sides will be differentiable without using paint.

The results are below in the picture and slide show.

From hardware set

Turn on the comments for the slide show to see some of the details of making each piece. A list of the parts used is available here.

For the interested: My rant on chess sets

There is a certain order to chess sets which dramatically helps with recognizing pieces and gives a sort of creative framework which I find very appealing. I'm much, much less inclined to play/purchase a set which breaks these 'norms.'

I think one of the most salient features of a good chess set is that the pieces conform to a given height scheme: the pawns should be short and about half the height of the king/queen. The rooks (castles) should be the second shortest. The knights and bishops can be approximately the same height, but if one is taller, it should be the bishop. The king and queen should be approximately the same height, with possibly a top point of a king's crown taller than the queen.

A classic indicator of the king is a cross topping his crown. (I'm particularly proud of the fact that my hardware kings are phillips head screws, and thereby are topped with a cross.... sneaky...).  A classic indicator of the queen is a many-pointed crown.  The only piece which is never radially symmetric is the knight; most of the time the others will be radially symmetric. In the case that a set is actually representing people with faces, this radial symmetry can be neglected in favor of more sculptured people.

 If you want to see the other chess sets in my collection (minus a few recent ones) you can see them here.

From chess pictures

an idea for a product

I like to hang out around www.makezine.com in part because of the fun, adventuresome attitude that they have, in part because of their recycling sorta mindset, and in part because they have great content, and in part because they have an awesome motto:

"Void your warranty, violate a user agreement, fry a circuit, blow a fuse, poke an eye out. Make: The risk-takers, the doers, the makers of things... Welcome to Make: Online! "

But anyway, one day while I was hanging out there, I got this idea. There are radio/ infrared systems that digitize a pen input from a normal whiteboard, but they require a big system of sensors stuck to the board, or special pens, etc. Probably the best, most widely known system like this is called a smartboard and pairs special pens for location awareness and a projector for live ink.

However, I have often wondered about being able to use an existing surface with a minimum of equipment to provide a touch input area... like for instance, take a real desk and section off an area to use for touch input. A microprojector could even be used. (There are now cameras that come with microprojectors to use for photo viewing). The core technology would be pretty heavy on the processing side, since it would use small piezo condenser mics to listen for taps on the surface, and then compare relative times for the sound to travel to pinpoint the touch location. Sound travels much quicker (and usually better) through solids than through air, so ambient noise shouldn't overwhelm it. I really think it might be able to work. It'd be lots of fun to try.

and no, I haven't done a patent search.

Another good day

So, with no classes, I still managed to have a pretty good day yesterday:

well I woke up late (which ended up working out ok).

took a walk

got some old tennis balls from the sports center and put them on my chair legs so it doesn't make horendous noises when I move

read most of a book

sat by a tiny pond covered in lillypads and cattails under a grape vine arbor

took another walk

ate dark chocolate

explored some academic buildings

explored some abandoned buildings

fixed a toaster

played knockout with friends.

Tomorrow: start the day off with a swim, then read, then clean the floor, maybe fix a fan, and frisbee!

setbacks are a way of life.

Yesterday I was going to mass the dye for the known, calibrated solution that makes measuring possible for the water chlorination project. However, the person with the keys to the lab wasn't in his office. I figured, hey, try again tomorrow at a time that's not as close to 5pm.

Today I found out that he's on vacation for this week.

Wouldn't be a huge problem, but everyone else that has keys to the rooms is at the faculty/staff luncheon. So I'm pretty much stuck until 1pm.

Also, the "for drain or sewer use only" size of flexible connector is only strong enough to hold onto the main pipe up to about 10 gal/min, which is about 1/6 of what we would like to test.
It really needs to be glued, but I don't have time to do that. Right now my goal is to get a data point, and to type up the documentation.

Tomorrow my mother comes down to help me finish moving out of the Cedarville apartment, and then I'll be packing at home, until the party friday night. Then I leave on Saturday. Crazy.