I'm currently developing a self-playing chessboard on which I'd like to implement an Artificial Intelligence (AI) (currently it's Stockfish. I would like to know how I could, if I can, export Arena GUI's (other ideas are welcome) to somehow position my stepper motors correctly. Does anyone know of a way?

I'm writing the code in python.


I think using the Arena GUI may be an overly complex way of attempting this.

Instead, go for the Arena engines. Many (all?) implement the UCI protocol, which would allow your application to basically send move information to the engine, and get its responses (under the chosen set of parameters) back.

Some chess engines use other protocols, and not all may be open or freely available. UCI (see https://www.chessprogramming.org/UCI for more info) is reasonably well known, so you should be able to get answers to any problems you might have.


If you're working with python, you'll have far better luck with python-chess

It includes a fully featured core API for the rules of chess, and is also able to handle engine communication via both UCI and XBoard (along with support for opening books, endgame tablebases, chess variants, rendering, PGN files, etc.)

This would be significantly easier than implementing the UCI protocol yourself or trying to hook into Arena.

  • Yes, I've already found this library. It truly is heaven sent! – DGGB Oct 4 '19 at 6:06

See http://wiki.bitplan.com/index.php/Raspberry_PI_Chessboard_Camera for some background information and links on a related project.

See http://wiki.bitplan.com/index.php/PlayChessWithAWebCam for a project that currently migrates an older solution that has an Arena interface. See e.g.


which would be the link that is most close to an answer to your question.

I am a committer of the new fork and intend to go more general. You are invited to get in touch and file an issue for your needs. I also think it might be worthwile to integrate your efforts and the above project.

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