A cool chess board? where the chess pieces move automatically

I decided to scrap my old idea with the shadows. My friend, Joel (in the Architecture section), and I decided to pair up to create something together for the final project.
Can we make a chessboard where each side plays each other on their own?

Research

So something like an automated chessboard already exists . There's even a kick starter for it. Perhaps the design goal I am most fond of from that project is that they want to preserve that natural look to the board.

Basically, I want to be able to build every single part via methods in this class. My current thoughts so far is that we shouldn't necessarily worry about aesthetics. The mechanism they used is also magnetic. I'm not leaning towards this method, as this may require a lot of focus in knowledge elsewhere.

So a few options are... 1) make a better version (the one I linked looks very bulky), 2) take a different angle

Things to think about: 1) the moving mechanism, 2) the size of this thing, 3) how to separate tasks, 4) what material to use for each part

Weekly Progress:

In week 8, I mold and cast chess pieces.

In week 9, I program a stepper motor.