An ESP32-powered split-flap chess board flips tiles to bring the classic game to life

At a glance:

• A maker known as e4_user has built a fully mechanical split-flap chess board where every tile is an individual display that physically flips to reveal chess pieces.
• The board is powered by a single ESP32 microcontroller running the chess engine, with one Raspberry Pi Pico dedicated to controlling each rank of eight tiles.
• Five of the eight ranks are currently complete; black pieces have not yet been added, and the creator has not announced a public build guide.

How the split-flap chess board works

The chess board replaces every square with its own split-flap display — the same type of mechanical tile you might remember from old airport departure boards. When the game state changes, each tile physically rotates to show the correct chess piece symbol, producing a deeply satisfying mechanical clicking sound that the maker community has come to love about split-flap projects. According to e4_user, the board includes a large number of individual display states, including multiple variations for showing the king under different notation conventions, which suggests a high level of mechanical and firmware complexity.

Under the hood, a single Espressif ESP32 serves as the main brain, running the chess engine and coordinating the state of all 64 squares. Each rank (row of eight tiles) is controlled by its own Raspberry Pi Pico microcontroller, which receives instructions from the ESP32 and drives the individual flap actuators. This distributed architecture keeps the wiring manageable and means each rank can be debugged or swapped independently.

The maker behind the board

e4_user posted the project on the Arduino subreddit, where it quickly caught the attention of the broader maker community and was picked up by Hackster.io. In the post, e4_user described the split-flap chess board as their very first engineering project — a significant undertaking for a debut build that combines embedded firmware, mechanical design, and chess logic in a single physical product. The response on Reddit and maker forums has been overwhelmingly positive, with commenters praising both the ingenuity of the concept and the crisp execution visible in the demonstration video.

Why split-flap displays and chess are a natural pairing

Split-flap displays have enjoyed a well-documented renaissance among hobbyists and makers over the past decade. Once a staple of train stations and airport terminals, the mechanical tiles fell out of favor as LED and LCD screens became cheaper. But their tactile, audible feedback — the snap and whir of a flap changing — gives them a sensory quality that flat screens simply cannot replicate. Projects ranging from word clocks to notification boards have embraced the technology, and chess — a game built on discrete, physical pieces occupying discrete squares — turns out to be an almost ideal use case.

Chess itself has a long and intertwined history with computing. In the 1990s, early AI systems began challenging human grandmasters, and over the following decades engines running on supercomputers effectively solved the game at the highest levels. Today, anyone with a phone can play against an AI that would have required a room-sized machine a generation ago. Against that backdrop, a handcrafted split-flap board represents a counterpoint: technology used not to play the game for you, but to make the physical act of playing more tactile, audible, and visually distinctive.

What comes next

As of the project's public posting, e4_user has completed five of the eight ranks that make up the 8×8 board. The remaining three ranks are still under construction, and notably, the black pieces have not yet been fabricated — meaning the board currently only supports one side of the game. The creator has expressed hope of finishing the full board and eventually sharing enough detail for other makers to attempt their own builds at home, though no formal guide, schematic, or parts list has been published yet.

For the wider maker community, this project is worth watching for two reasons. First, it demonstrates that split-flap displays can scale to surprisingly complex applications without abandoning the mechanical charm that makes them appealing. Second, it sits at a compelling intersection of retro display technology, modern low-cost microcontrollers, and one of the oldest strategy games in human history — a combination that tends to attract both skilled builders and enthusiastic audiences. If e4_user does release a build guide, expect a wave of copycat and derivative projects across maker platforms.