Educational BoosterPack

The much anticipated Educational BoosterPack by CircuitCo is here!

I've received my Educational BoosterPack thanks to the 43oh.com forum:
CircuitCo has shipped the Educational Boosterpack to Rickta and ReiVilo. They are the most active in the Energia Forum and putting out libraries.

Thanks to CircuitCo for sponsoring the boards and shipping them.
A new version is available: see Educational BoosterPack MK-II!
Once opened, the box includes the BoosterPack inside an anti-static protection and a short notice with links.
The BoosterPack includes a long list of actuators and sensors:
  • 2 x 16 LCD display
  • White LED
  • Red-Green-Blue LED
  • 3-axis accelerometer
  • Buzzer
  • Potentiometer --requires deselecting accelerometer Y
  • Microphone --requires deselecting accelerometer Z

Hardware

As the Educational BooasterPack uses pretty much all the pins, jumpers for LEDs are to be removed to avoid any interferences.
The hardware includes two jumpers to select 
  • accelerometer Y-axis or potentiometer
  • accelerometer Z-axis or microphone
Accelerometer selected
Potentiometer and microphone selected
The screen features 2 lines of 16 characters and two sizes of fonts. 

The font are provided by the screen, saving precious memory from the MSP430.
With big fonts, the screen is limited to one line of 16 characters.

Actually, the internal memory of screen contains up to 2 lines of 40 characters with manual and automatic scrolling.
The RGB LED displays virtually all the visible colours, thanks to three separate parameters, one per channel: red, green, blue.

Each channel can be set from 0 to 255, allowing 16K = 16777216 different colours!

• CAUTION
The RGB LED is very bright. 
Take the appropriate measures to protect your eyes from any damage.
The alligator holes are connected to P2_6 and P2_7 pins. 

This requires the 32kHz external crystal not to be soldered.

Software

This is the major surprise: the Educational BoosterPack comes with no ready-to-use library and no out-of-the-box software.

You'll find useful links on the right, including the specification sheets as well as some libraries users can get inspiration from. 

Links
I really like the educational challenge for the users. 

They'll have to look for the specification sheets, read and understand them. 
They'll also have to write their libraries from scratch or adapt existing ones to the Educational BoosterPack.

Beware: the libraries need to be adapted with the help of the specification sheets!

However, CircuitCo should have provided the minimum links to the specification sheets on its main wiki page.
  • Library for the LCD by Eberhard Fahle —to be adapted
  • Library for the accelerometer by Rei Vilo —to be adapted
  • Library for the RGB LED by Rei Vilo —to be adapted

Ready-to-Use Library

Although I've developed my own library for the Educational BoosterPack, I'm just wondering whether I should keep the true educational challenge for the Educational BoosterPack or release the library. 
The Educational BoosterPack can be programmed with Energia, an easy-to-use Processing-based Wiring-derived Arduino-like IDE, and embedXcode, a template for Xcode.

I managed to get access to all devices featured by the BoosterPack, acquire data from the sensors, send text to the LCD screen, control  the LEDs and make noise with the buzzer.

The poll at 43oh gave an overwhelming result for the release of the library for Energia.
So here it is, with three examples:
  • display the X-, Y- and Z- angles from the accelerometer
  • display a RGB colour based on sound, with green=low, yellow=medium, red=high, white=record!
  • adjust the contrast of the LCD and the font size

Enjoy!
educationalboosterpack_library.zip
File Size: 109 kb
File Type: zip
Download File

Book

The very developers of the Educationnal BoosterPack have written Getting Started with the MSP430 LaunchPad. 

The book is specifically designed for the Educational BoosterPack and provides a step-by-step introduction to embedded computing with hands-on projects. 

All the sensors and actuators are introduced through 26 projects, from a blinking LED to a more complex musical instrument or message displayed on a LCD. 

Links

Pins Map

Picture

Conclusion

I really like this Educational BoosterPack, packed with plenty of sensors and actuators, as well as the educational challenge.

I've used it with Energia and ran my first project in just a couple of minutes. Hint: start with blinking the white LED on pin P2_5! 

At USD25, this BoosterPack provides terrific value. Bought with a LaunchPad (USD10), the USD35 total is cheaper than the Arduino Uno board (USD30) with additional sensors and actuators. 

Together with a LaunchPad MSP430 and the book Getting Started with the MSP430 LaunchPad, this BoosterPack provides the perfect introduction to the embedded computing world!


Display of the three axis from the accelerometer, 
with the LaunchPad placed horizontally on a table.

Pros

  • Rich assortment of sensors and actuators
  • Documentation with BOM, schematics and Eagle files

Cons

  • No software provided
  • Some hardware tricks

Wrap-Up

    • Perfect match for the LaunchPad MSP430 to start exploring embedded computing
    • Educational challenge: read and understand specification sheets!
    • Great value: LaunchPad + Educational BoosterPack for USD35

Useful Links

BoosterPack
Specification Sheets
Libraries to Be Adapted
  • Library for the LCD by Eberhard Fahle 
  • Library for the accelerometer by Rei Vilo 
  • Library for the RGB LED by Rei Vilo
    IDEs
    Plug-and-Play Libraries
    Book
    Forums