Where No Raspberry Pi Has Gone Before

With the near ubiquity of smartphones, most of us have become accustomed to carrying a powerful computer in our pocket wherever we go. Having email, maps, and a web browser always at our fingertips is great, but we may sometimes find that we need functionality not available on our smartphones — like if we find ourselves exploring an alien world.

Fortunately for us all, saveitforparts sprang into action to build a 23rd century-esque tricorder with inexpensive 21st century parts.

The styling may not be slick enough for a Starfleet officer, but saveitforparts did manage to pack a lot of hardware into a reasonably compact case. The waterproof case was purchased off-the-shelf and sliced up a bit to increase the available internal volume. A Raspberry Pi serves as the main processing unit, with a touchscreen TFT LCD display for output. The touchscreen is located within the case, which makes the “touch” portion irrelevant when the case is closed. It is not clear from the video how the device receives input. It appears that the case would need to be opened to interact with the gadget.

Also packed into the case is a software-defined radio for picking up alien communications, and a thermal camera to detect unknown lifeforms. Additional environmental sensors were planned to be included in the build, but saveitforparts ran into some difficulties getting them working and shelved it for a later revision. It was refreshing to see an account of all the difficulties encountered along the way (how do you snap an SD card inadvertently?) and realize that I am not the only one that follows a rough path to an initial working prototype.

The maker opted to use a conventional USB battery pack to power the device, which means the run time is not especially lengthy. I would strongly suggest considering dilithium crystals in a future revision — this enhancement would also get rid of the lightning bolt frequently popping up on the screen during the demo, which indicates that the Raspberry Pi is not being supplied with sufficient voltage.

This may not be a convenient, carry-everywhere device, but it looks like it would be a lot of fun to build and play with.