Over the last few centuries, behavioral psychologists have documented all kinds of ways of modifying our actions and the actions of various animals. From the famous Skinner boxes to many modern video game mechanics, animals and humans alike can learn through the addition or subtraction of various rewards and punishments. And it doesn’t only impact simple actions either; [Everything is Hacked] took this idea to the extreme, using painful electric shocks to teach himself to avoid making blunders while playing chess.
This positive punishment system uses a medical device called transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation (TENS) to deliver an electric shock to the skin. The electrical jolt is routed through a custom-built, conductive chess board where each square is isolated from the others and controlled by its own relay. The pieces are conductive as well, so if one is placed on a square where it shouldn’t go a relay will switch on to quickly provide the behavioral modification. The control logic is provided by a Raspberry Pi running the Stockfish chess engine, and it keeps track of the locations of the positions of all the pieces by using MX switches in the base of each square on the board.
This project took [Everything is Hacked] over a year to get into a working condition, including having to rebuild the entire project twice after mishaps with baggage handling at an airline. But he was able to demo the board to the Open Sauce tech festival and even took it to his local park to play chess with the local hustlers. Unfortunately, he reports that he spent more time reworking and rewiring his board over that year than he did improving his chess game, so unfortunately he still hasn’t been able to win any of his money back yet. Perhaps combining this project with a chess-playing robot would help.
Nice!
I’ve always want to build the Domination of The World game from Never Say Never Again.
Danger Level! Danger Level!
Shock Chess
It shocks you, it doesnt tase you.
At bare minimum, TASERs utilize a complex, shaped pulse waveform designed for neuromuscular incapacitation (NMI) from a distance, whereas stun guns typically use a simple, continuous, high-voltage/low-amperage, pulsed waveform designed for direct-contact pain compliance. TASERs cause involuntary muscle contractions; stun guns primarily cause pain.
TENS (Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulation) units typically use low-voltage, high-frequency, short-duration electrical pulses, most commonly as asymmetrical or symmetrical biphasic rectangular waves. These waveforms deliver therapeutic currents to block pain signals (gate control theory) or trigger endorphin release,
Additionally, the trademarked term, Taser typically refers to a device equipped with barbed, tethered, dart electrodes.
Lacking both complex waveform and projectile, and equipped with a generator designed to NOT optimize pain but rather to deliver a therapeutic pulse. This is clearly just SHOCK Chess.
Oh my God dude. We’re just here to see chess noobs get electrocuted
“Be still my heart!”
That’s the purpose.
I played Bobby Fischer once….I made a wrong move…and then my chest opened up and bit his arms off.
–Vance Norris
All technically correct, but “Taser Chess” is way more fun to say
well its a checkered board with two different colored pieces on it so you might as well call it Taser Checkers then. I mean if we are abandoning fact for funsies, why not go all the way and call it ZappyCastles?
now i want to play zappy castles
Does it include input from the chess timer to hurry the game along? That would be useful.
(no, i didn’t watch fscking video)
Too bad that it solely relies on negative feedback, even if the voltage may be positive…
Positive feedback learning usually works 5 times as good as negative feedback. And you can make nice enough eye-candy with high voltage, don’t you think?
so you want the teledildonics version instead?
there’s always the tension between the goals of doing well vs. avoiding blunders. For example, yesterday i beat 13yo at mario kart because he was excelling at every opportunity to stunt while i was narrowly focused on not making mistakes. I’ve been working on my chess game for a while, and i definitely see the two skills totally separately…i’ve gotten pretty good at recognizing promising avenues but i still blunder at a pretty high rate.
Not that i think an electric shock would be a good trainer :) The negative feedback of watching dude take my queen for free is stressful enough
Positive feedback may work better but it’s not nearly as fun to watch.
I dunno, I’ve ended up very drunk due to positive reinforcement while playing chess. Replace those pieces with tin shot glasses and then we’ll have a game
This was in an episode of Doctor Who… With the added spice of the voltage increasing each move….
This reminds me of a situation when I was 10 or 12 years old. The father of a friend of mine used to play tricks with grabbing an electric fence with one hand, and then touching someone else with the other hand.
So when I was sitting on my bicycle (I was braking and the steer (with isolated handle) was resting against a wall) I had no problems with taking a hand from him. Didn’t feel a think while he was shocked himself all the time. His shoe soles were worse of an insulation then my bicycle tires.
in physics class i was put on the van der graaf generator due to my long hair. after being zapped enough by my colleages i grabbed one of them and let go of the vdg, then let go of him. ‘now you have the same charge as me, you better be carefull what you touch’ ‘oh no what do i do?’ he said. i told him he needed to dissapate the charge as quickly as possible. (the teacher started to interject, but then just gave me a ‘you bastard’ look.)… ‘like this tap’ i said.
lets just say he found out a lttle more about the significance of current :)
Well after seeing all the problems he had with that build now I know why he built taser chess, he’s a glutton for punishment!
Seit seems nobody remembers:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PainStation
It isn’t Blitz chess without a Stuka