Tangible Optical Chess
Andy Wu, David Joyner, Dr. Ellen Yi-Luen Do & Dr. Ali Mazalek
Optical Chess is a strategic board game created using the theoretical idea of lasers and mirrors, as well as many of the concepts and terminology from the more standard game of Chess. The game's initial objectives were to be easy to learn, to be difficult to master, to be strictly strategic with no element of randomness, and to lend itself to emergent strategies that appear after the application of a few very simple rules, rather than have rules that are intended to create certain strategies. In the future, users could perform optical experiments on this interactive tabletop display without setting complicated environments and with minimal risk of eye damage from laser beams.