A school project of Jens Boomgaard, Sebastiaan van Straten and Patrick Vreeburg.
We made a chess app in Python with the use of Kivy and KivyMD. This app was made between August and December of 2023
Once you load up the app, either with the .exe file (you may want to minimize the console window) or with py ./src/app.py, you are greeted with our main menu. In this menu there are the following items:
- The top bar with a button to end the game (flag icon) and one to change the global settings (gear icon), such as themes and piece sets.
- The settings before you start the game.
- The chess board.
- Two clocks, one fixed to the top and one fixed to the bottom of the chess board.
When you click 'Start game' and you have selected 'Bot as white', you may experience some lag at the start. Here the bot is calculating its first move.
Please note that the experience can vary based on the hardware you run it on. We are aware that the bot takes a long while, so please have patience when you play against a bot.
To run the app, open Cesium from the apps menu or run arTIfiCE on your TI and run the program TICHESS. Once you load up the app, the chess board will draw.
The rules of the game are as follows: your goal is to reach the other side of the board. Once one player has succeeded, they win.
Once a game if finished, the program will automatically reset the game 3 seconds after one player has won.
Use the arrow keys to move the cursor and press enter to select the piece. Then, move your cursor to the square that you want to move to and press enter again. Now, a question will appear asking if the move is valid, so if the move can be made. This question is there to use in 'Schiskunde', where the opponent has to validate the player on certain criteria before letting them make a move. To accept, press y=/f1 and to reject, press graph/f5 (any other key works too).
To quit the program, you can press the clear button on the calculator to terminate the program.
Make sure you have Python installed on your system. We tested our app with Python 3.11.6.
When running the following commands, have your terminal in the same directory as where you cloned this repository.
To install the required packages, run py -m pip install -r ./requirements.txt.
To build the file, make sure you have pyinstaller installed and run pyinstaller ./src/app.py -F -n ChessPWS --add-data ./src/themes.json:. --add-data ./src/app.kv:. --add-data ./data/:.
All theme data is stored in C:\Users\<user>\AppData\Local\Quasar\ChessPWS\themes.json on Windows, /home/<user>/.local/share/ChessPWS on Unix/Linux or /Users/<user>/Library/Application Support/ChessPWS on MacOS.
To install the app, you must connect the calculator to your PC and use softawre like TI Connect CE or TILP to transfer the files to your calculator.
The following steps guide you through the installation:
- Install arTIfiCE from https://yvantt.github.io/arTIfiCE/. This is a 'jailbreak' that allows you to run assembly programs on your TI. You don't need to install this if you have any OS version before 5.5.0
- Optionally, you can install Cesium. This is a shell in which you can run from the
appsmenu, as supposed to viaCabri Jr.when you're using only arTIfiCE. You can download it here: https://github.com/MateoConLechuga/Cesium/releases - Install the necessary libraries at https://tiny.cc/clibs
- Install the app (
TICHESS.8xpandVARGFX.8xv) form the latest release or build them yourself (see build instructions)
Make sure that you have the CE Toolchain installed from https://github.com/CE-Programming/toolchain. Please also read through the Getting Started page on their wiki.
To actually build it, first set your working directory to Cpp_Version by running cd /path/to/U-Staat-Schaak/src/GR-version/Cpp_Version. Then simply run make gfx && make to build the app. You should now see VARGFX.8xv in ./src/gfx and TICHESS.8xp in ./bin.