photo sensor circuit to robot

[this is a username]

Hi. I am making a project where I build a checkerboard and have a robot play against me using digital logic. I will be wiring a photodiode under every square of the board and it will detect if there is a checker there or not. My question is how will I get that to go to a robot and have that robot decide which move to make using logic? My teacher says to use a comparator.
Any help is greatly appreciated.

 

[IanP]

My teacher says to use a comparator.

And he is probably right, the only way a sensor can produce any usable signal (in this application) is by interfacing it via a comparator .. see attached picture ..
The level can be precisely set with a multi-turn-variable resistor ..

IanP
:|

 

[this is a username]

ok thank you. so the output of the comparator would go to the input of the robot. The only problem is there are about 10 inputs on the robot and there are 64 squares on the checkerboard