Tackling global warming with online chess game 🌎 ♞

~ by ACF Junior startup team(Eco Hero)

Hello, we are the Eco Hero team. We are a team of middle schoolers enthusiastic about coding working towards raising awareness of global warming and pollution. Thanks to ACF, we have been able to get together as a team and work on something we are passionate about.

What is Eco Hero?

The project we are working on currently is a modified version of chess. While it will be the same as chess in most aspects, our project has several key differences. Notable differences are the way the pieces move, the way the pieces look, and what pieces you start with. We intend to change the pieces’ appearances to reflect species in real life, based on where the player is at. For example, a player from Siberia will see polar bears, huskies, and wild deer, while a player from Egypt will see crocodiles, camels, and lizards. Similarly, the opponent’s pieces could appear as an invasive species in the area. This is based on where the player is at. By doing so, our game will form a connection with the environment, and our players will learn about our planet’s issues.

What we are working on

We have made good progress in the last three months. Already, we have almost completed the base chess game. As of now, we are currently working on our home webpage as well as the piece-capturing mechanism. By next week, we will be able to move on to the check and checkmate detection system.

Challenges we faced

There were many challenges we encountered and had to overcome within the past few months. In the beginning, none of us really knew each other, and we were quite shy about contributing to the discussions. Sometimes we didn’t do our homework that we needed to do to make some progress in our project. But after a few weeks, we got used to each other and thanks to the help of our two ACF coaches, we were able to stay productive and get through our meetings. We will continue working hard on our project and provide regular updates. Stay tuned!

*Eco Hero team has been mentored by two extraordinary ACF coaches, Nathan Lee and Grant Cheng♞