I recently had some time to myself and was able to make a working prototype of a new type of go playing robot that uses computer vision to read a board and a laser attached to a couple of servos to point on any physical board where the computer wants to move next. You can see the robot in action here https://imgur.com/gallery/Q6CIae2. I haven't seen anyone else use this approach so I wanted to share in hopes of inspiring others to help push this concept further. This was a pretty easy build and all the materials together cost less than $60 so I could potentially see there is a future where something like this design can fulfill the dream of playing against online opponents on a real board. I open sourced the project and it can be found here https://github.com/diegocepedaw/lasergo

Beautifully done, clever. thanks for thinking it up.
Your current prototype is beyond my maker skills but I'll be watching to see if you post future progress.

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David Bogie, Boise ID
I play go, I ride a recumbent, of course I use Macintosh.

Full Marks! - I really like this and I would encourage you to take the concept further. The Chinese made Go board with lights built-in to the intersections is interesting but expensive and you can't use your own board and stones or choose the AI software.

I could see your kit being used to play against a remote opponent, studying game records and playing against a computer - using say Kata-Go. It would also be a good way for someone to remotely "attend" a club meeting - getting people to physical clubs was always challenging at the best of times.

What skills do you need to move this forward? A lot of people on this forum have software skills.

I would not be surprised if a Chinese manufacturer wouldn't be interested.

Good Luck - John

I think this would be very interesting for many people if you linked it to KataGo and simply gave it sound/speech output, like short status tones and speech for coordinates to place a stone and possibly how many stones have to be removed. This would allow nearly everyone to play on a real board in a very convenient way.

I love that... Golf? A stick and a ball and a hole in the ground... come on! How hard can it be? Stop-action animation? Some clay and a camera... come on! How hard can it be?

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David Bogie, Boise ID
I play go, I ride a recumbent, of course I use Macintosh.