Prototyping The Future: Building A “Star Trek” Tricorder
Michael Parks, P.E. for Mouser Electronics
Licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0
Assembly
Operating the Tricorder
We printed a nice little case to give us the Tricorder look-and-feel. But this is completely optional if you just wish to use the BoosterPack as a development board to access the various sensors.
Construction is pretty straightforward.
1. Hookup the MSP432 LaunchPad to your computer with the provided USB cable and launch Energia. Then upload the provided software. Unplug the USB cable from the LaunchPad.
2. Attach the Tricorder BoosterPack onto the LaunchPad.
3. Next attach the Sharp96 LCD display BoosterPack into the Tricorder BoosterPack. The old 20-pin configuration of the Sharp96 BoosterPack means it should plugin to the outer headers pins on the Tricorder.
4. Lastly, plugin the USB cable back into the LaunchPad board and watch the Tricorder come to life.
5. Using the buttons on the bottom of the Tricorder BoosterPack, the user can navigate through the various sensor readings.
Table 2: Tricorder BoosterPack Pin Map
| Pin # | Purpose | Pin # | Purpose |
| 1 | 3.3V | 21 | 5V |
| 2 | SHARP96 LCD Power Control | 22 | GND |
| 3 | UART RX | 23 | LMT70 - TAO (ADC) |
| 4 | UART TX | 24 | |
| 5 | Sharp96 Display DC | 25 | |
| 6 | SPI Sharp96 CS | 26 | |
| 7 | SPI CLK | 27 | LMP91000_VOUT |
| 8 | LMT70 - T_ON | 28 | PGA900_VOUT |
| 9 | SCL | 29 | |
| 10 | SDA | 30 | |
| 11 | PMOD 0 | 31 | LMP91000 MENB |
| 12 | SD Card CS | 32 | PMOD 1 |
| 13 | | 33 | PMOD 2 |
| 14 | MISO | 34 | PMOD 3 |
| 15 | MOSI | 35 | BUTTON 0 |
| 16 | BUTTON RESET | 36 | BUTTON 1 |
| 17 | LED 0 | 37 | |
| 18 | | 38 | MAG3110 INT |
| 19 | | 39 | LED 1 |
| 20 | GND | 40 | LED Power |
Project in Action
Launching the Future
We’ve really only scratched the surface of what’s possible with the MSP432-based LaunchPad. What device from the realm of science fiction would you attempt to turn into reality using these new LaunchPads? Let us know in the comments.
Figure 9: The Tricorder, shown without the case.
We would love to hear what you think about this project; please tell us in the comments section below.
