Robot Chess but Each Piece is a Small Robot

- Pluto Uplink taught us to call it research, and this open-source hardware is definitely interesting. [3DprintedLife] ditched the clunky external arms for self-contained MiniBots—tiny robots that are also chess pieces. Each unit runs on an ESP32-C3, dual PMO8-2 steppers, and a magnetometer, communicating via ESP-NOW to a Pi hub. They triangulate position using board electromagnets, turning standard plastic into a distributed robotic swarm. It’s not just play; it’s generic automation architecture. Sure, the single-core MCU tripped the firmware, but with some hash-manifest-level debugging, we’re looking at scalable, decentralized physical agents. Whoa, that's mega-illegal in terms of complexity reduction. I'll swap that node in twelve minutes. This is the physical layer of AI: small, smart, and moving on its own.