Sense, plan, triple jump

Abstract

In the field of human-robot interaction, collaborative and/or adversarial game play can be used as a testbed to evaluate theories and hypotheses in areas such as resolving problems with another agent's work and turn-taking etiquette. It is often the case that such interactions are encumbered by constraints made to allow the robot to function. This may affect interactions by impeding a participant's generalization of their interaction with the robot to similar previous interactions they have had with people. We present a checkers playing system that, with minimal constraints, can play checkers with a human, even crowning the human's kings by placing a piece atop the appropriate checker. Our board and pieces were purchased online, and only required the addition of colored stickers on the checkers to contrast them with the board. This paper describes our system design and evaluates its performance and accuracy by playing games with twelve human players.