We have kept going with this project. The problem we have right now is to find a way to have wood veneer on the surface (this requires a rigid board) and, at the same time, being able to detect the pieces and their location.

The first idea is to have hall effect sensors placed under the board and magnets inside the pieces to have the sensing system working without needing to push buttons.

The one thing it worries me is that using hall sensors will need to use a very thin interface between the sensors (under the board) and the magnets (inside the pieces)

The current board is made out of an aluminium composite panel which is very rigid and lightweight. We machined the bottom side of the panel to allow the sensors to be placed closer to the magnets while the top side has wood veneer.

This is a good way to have natural wood veneer on the board, but we are sure there is still plenty of room for improvements.

Any thoughts? 

You can join our discord server to chat about chess and stuff: https://discord.gg/5Am7CDzwUf