Willis Osorio Capstone 2025

For my Senior Capstone project, I created a web-based, full-stack chess engine in which users can play against AI opponents with adjustable difficulty levels. Throughout eighty hours, I built a JavaScript engine with 64-bit bitboard representations, a depth-limited minimax algorithm with alpha-beta pruning, and handcrafted evaluation heuristics for position scoring. I combined this with a React frontend that utilizes Chessboard.js for interactive play, and a Node.js/Express backend with WebSocket support to sync game state in real-time.

The project demonstrates Science Leadership Academy’s five core values: I used Inquiry to define driving technical questions, Research to learn about algorithms and network communication, Collaboration to work with classmates and gain feedback online, Presentation to present progress through code and blog entries, and Reflection to record problems and insights in a development journal.

Key milestones involved developing the core engine, altering evaluation logic, constructing a complex user interface in terms of CRAP design principles, real-time server communication implementation, and debugging performance. Issues like search bottlenecks and asynchronous message sequencing require technical problem-solving through pruning strategies and sequence tracking.

The project instilled in me fundamental skills in algorithm design, software architecture, and user-driven development. It also made me further appreciate the application of abstract theory through practical engineering.

GitHub Link: https://github.com/wosorio25/ChessEng