Chess set with checkers like pieces

thingiverse

I designed this chess set for the McFarland Youth Center, where I volunteer to build a chess club. The 20x20 inch Russian Baltic Birch board was found at a local building store and drawn on with precision. After burning the design into the wood using pyrography, an acrylic wash was applied to color the black squares while showcasing the grain. The MYC logo was also burned into the corners but later painted in solid acrylic. The chess pieces consist of a base and a 1mm thick PLA cup filled with Portland cement for a solid feel. Once cured, the top was coated with a thin layer of black acrylic to provide a background for the piece icons. These icons were 3D printed in yellow and orange and glued onto the bases. The pawns have smaller diameter bases than the other pieces. The design aims to create familiar-looking chess pieces for the children, similar to those found on online chess sites like lichess.org and chessclub.com. Standard "rank and file" notation is also marked on the board to help them learn this system. After applying a protective clear plastic top coat, the pieces were ready for use. The design process began with a screenshot of an online chess site, which was then imported into Inkscape. The image was cleaned up, modified, and cropped to produce .svg files. FreeCAD was used to create .stl files by importing the .svg images and resizing them to 25x25 mm. The part design workbench in FreeCAD helped create a sketch in the same plane as the .svg image. Note that the pawns were padded thinner than the larger pieces for their .stl files, requiring special attention during the design process.