Schackappen is a Swedish digital learning tool for children aged 6–12. Through five core exercises, opening training and chess puzzles, the student learns the pieces' moves, tactics and strategy — at their own pace, with a personal ELO rating and a safe, pedagogical structure.
The child meets each piece in an isolated setting before the full game is introduced. Rules are built from the concrete to the abstract.
The app tracks difficulty itself. The student meets ever-harder scenarios without anything "changing level" — motivation is kept.
Voice and text use the student's name. Right moves are celebrated, wrong moves explained — never a red cross or a discouraging tone.
Every completed exercise is rewarded with a song and a trophy. Sound can be turned off for classroom use.
The student meets one piece at a time (pawn, knight, bishop, rook, queen, king). Green squares show legal moves. When a sentence of golden words is collected, a winning song plays.
The piece leaves a rainbow trail behind it. The student sees the piece's movement pattern visually and learns which squares it controls.
Treasure chests sit on the board and open when the piece lands on them. Each chest reveals a golden word — together the words form a sentence.
The student practises capturing the opponent's pieces. Above the board, the piece's name and capture rule are shown. A good first step towards real play.
Classic checkmate situations with king + queen or king + rook. Teaches the student to finish a game — the hardest and most important skill.
Italian Game, Spanish, English and more. Each move is explained pedagogically ("The pawn takes the centre"), and the student can read more about the opening's idea.
Mate in 1–3 moves. Generated puzzles where the student sees White's and Black's moves clearly separated.
Stockfish is the world's strongest free chess engine. In Schackappen it is throttled down to an ELO rating that adapts to the student. If the student wins, difficulty rises; if they lose, it falls.
The app needs no manual level setting. Each time the student completes an exercise, difficulty rises automatically — new pieces, harder scenarios, more opponents. The ELO rating against the AI adapts after every game.
In the teacher portal (portal.schackappen.se) the teacher sees each student as a card: first name, figure, ELO rating, number of games, wins, completed sagas, stars and when the student was last active — updated in real time.
0–10 min: The teacher shows Move pieces → pawn on the big screen, the class guesses.
10–25 min: Students work on their own with pawn + rook.
25–35 min: Switch to Paint the board with the rook — see the pattern.
35–40 min: Show a trophy from the class — celebrate the progress.
Schackappen builds on open-source software: Stockfish (GPL v3, chess AI), chess.js (BSD 2-Clause, rules engine), cburnett pieces (CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons), Crimson Pro & Inter (SIL OFL, Google Fonts). The app is built by Ulf Austin Cato together with his daughter Isa.