Thomas More students build a web app for chess lessons
Steven Bellens introduces the project on the Geel campus on 2 October 2026.
Third-year Applied Computer Science students at Thomas More in Geel are working this semester on a web application for chess lessons in primary education. Their client is the Royal Belgian Chess Federation, which wants to help teachers teach chess even if they have little experience with the game themselves. Dave and Dylan from dotNET lab mentor the students on the technical implementation.
On Friday 2 October, Steven Bellens, president of the federation, visited the campus to introduce the project. He explained who the application is intended for and what the federation expects from it. This gave the students an understanding of the assignment and the teachers who will need to use their application from the outset.
Teaching materials in the browser
The web app needs to bring together lessons, exercises and practical instructions. Teachers should be able to use it for free after registering, without installing software. Dutch, French and German are among the requested languages. English is a possible extension.
The French Class’Échecs programme serves as inspiration. It offers thirty structured lessons with preparation sheets, videos and exercises for pupils. Teachers who are still learning chess themselves can also lead these lessons.
The Belgian Chess Federation wants to develop a Belgian version together with Thomas More and dotNET lab. The federation also describes the plans in its own article about the collaboration.
Mentoring by Dave and Dylan every Friday
Dave and Dylan visit Thomas More every Friday to mentor the student teams. They help with development in Angular and .NET and discuss questions about architecture, usability and maintainability.
The teams develop their own solutions. They need to explain why they choose a particular approach and how it fits the federation’s requirements. Dave and Dylan ask questions, give technical feedback and share experiences from their own software projects.
During the semester, the students also demonstrate their progress along the way. This allows them to incorporate feedback as they continue building.
For dotNET lab, this follows on from last academic year’s collaboration. Nine student teams then worked on further developing the digital side of Appie’s Legobib, an initiative by Bricks and More for lending LEGO on the children’s ward at Geel Hospital. Read the story behind Appie’s Legobib.
Three teams present on 18 December
The teams will deliver their projects in mid-December. dotNET lab will then select the three teams with the strongest results. They will present their application to the chess federation on Friday 18 December and show how they have approached the assignment.