Two “Tricorders” made using JavaScript and CircuitPython

In 1968, Adafruit Playground author “mrklingon” Joel Anderson participated in his first Science Fair, and saw a working Tricorder! It was another student’s project, an assembly of different instruments for sensing things.

I know it included radiation as well as temperature. It had a form of an electrical analog computer as well for calculations. It was all wrapped in a case modeled after the imaginary Tricorders on Star Trek. Pretty impressive for the time (the show was only in its second season)!

Joel writes his own efforts are pretty modest, but it’s fun to think about ways to craft a sort-of Tricorder device, given platforms like micro:bit or Circuit Playground Express with their multiple built in sensors.

Early on I made a micro:bit version that displayed compass reading, light level and temperature, along with a small vocabulary of “alien” words; easy to do with the 5×5 LED matrix on the micro:bit (this was V1 micro:bit, so it didn’t use the microphone). There was even an animated picture of the Enterprise.

Now, the Circuit Playground Express has good sensors but there is no graphic display, just the ring of ten neopixels – so how do you display readings? I wrote functions to display numbers by converting them to a string, and then, digit by digit, lighting up enough pixels to indicate the value.

In addition, for the Circuit Python version I recorded the digits 0-9, and “point” and “minus” so I could have the device speak the number. I also think it’s fun to use Morse code to display info, so for the Makecode version, I added the ability to display a number of sayings (maybe not too practical, but it was fun).

There are two versions: one coded in JavaScript in the MakeCode environment. The other using CircuitPython.

You can read more in the Adafruit Playground note here. And all the files are on GitHub.


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