3D Printed Ancient Roman Chessboard

Chess is one of the most recognizable games in the world, so I wanted to give the classic board a completely different personality. The result is a fully 3D-printed magnetic chess set, inspired by Ancient Roman architecture and designed entirely in Tinkercad.

Instead of a plain rectangular frame, the board is surrounded by arches and columns that ended up looking like a small Colosseum. All six chess pieces are custom too, built from the same basic shapes. It's my entry for the Instructables Toys, Games & Puzzles Contest 2026.

What makes it different

• 96 hidden neodymium magnets: one under each of the 64 squares and one inside each of the 32 pieces
• No visible hardware: every magnet is sealed inside the print, not glued on afterwards
• Roman architectural frame made from cylinders, half-spheres and boxes
• Six custom pieces, including a knight sculpted entirely from primitive shapes and holes
• Two colors, no multi-material printer: matte cream and matte black PLA
• Designed 100% in Tinkercad, sliced in OrcaSlicer and printed on a Flashforge Adventurer 5M

See it in action

How it works

The magnets go in during printing. I paused each print at the layer where the magnet cavities were fully formed but still open, dropped a 9 × 3 mm magnet into each one and resumed. The next layers closed over them, so the magnets are trapped inside for good. The cavities are 10 mm wide for a 9 mm magnet, and the snug fit plus the sealing layers hold them without glue.

The board holds 32 of those magnets under the cream squares. The other 32 live inside separately printed black squares that drop into the empty spaces, and the last 32 are in the bases of the pieces.

Polarity turned out to have a very simple rule: every magnet goes in with the same face up. Every part prints upright and every magnet is dropped in from above, so when a piece sits on the board, the bottom of its magnet always meets the opposite pole on top of the square's magnet.

Not everything went to plan. My first idea was to switch to black filament partway through the board print so the letters and numbers came out black. A filament change colors everything above that layer, though, and the printer started laying black over the whole board before I stopped it. The fix was to cut the coordinates out in OrcaSlicer and print them as their own frame, where the letters are the only thing above the color change, then glue it onto the board.

Build your own

Everything you need is public:

• Step-by-step Instructable: the full Tinkercad design process, print settings, magnet pauses and assembly, with every design embedded
• Showcase video

Boxes became a chessboard, cylinders became magnet cavities, and a handful of spheres and cones became a horse. Choose your army and let the battle begin.