At a Glance

• Laser Trek is high price-tag system for the entertainment industry.
• Hardware:  Altogether there are approximately 20 distinct printed circuit boards used in the system, of which I completely designed about a dozen, and I designed at least one version of about half of the remaining boards.
• Software:  I provided the complete firmware and software design for 3 CPUs -- a large but unknown quantity of C and 8051 assembly-language code.
• Documentation:  150 pages for regulatory and tracking purposes, plus an unknown quantity of less-product-specific engineering documentation.
• Effort:  About 2 years of my time.

Background

Laser Trek is a "laser tag" type of game system, suitable for installation in theme parks or high-end family entertainment centers.  Heads Up Technologies manufactures all of the equipment for this game (other than some off-the-shelf items such as audio amplifiers or speakers) and the software for it, as well as offering arena-design and installation services.  The typical system price is in the range $100K-200K.  There are (or have been) Laser Trek installations in Japan, Thailand, Canada, and at various locations in the United States, including sites at Six Flags and Sea World.

 What is Laser Trek?  Laser Trek is a game which takes place in a futuristic "arena", and consists of the following components:

A "game computer" (generally a Pentium PC) which is a central controller and information-collection point for the system.

Vests and battery-powered laser guns.  A typical number of guns would be 20.  The player wears the vest and carries (and fires) the gun.

Targets within the arena.  A typical number of targets would be 5.

Additional special effects or pieces of scenery, such as the arch filled with lightning bolts seen below.

A "network" that loosely couples together the game computer, vests/guns, and targets.

What did I do for Laser Trek?  I did not design the attractive sets and plastic seen in the accompanying photos, but I performed virtually all of the remaining technical design (as opposed to integration) work in this system.  The architecture of the system is entirely my work.

Technically, the most interesting elements of the Laser Trek system are these:

• The guns & vests.  The gun/vest is based on a Siemens 80C537 microcontroller.  The gun/vest is battery powered, with its NiCad batteries being recharged between games by a custom (i.e., Heads-Up supplied) recharger.  The gun/vest has a laser, infrared emitters & sensors, an RF transceiver, an LCD screen, numerous individually-controllable lights, and audio-playback capability.  Firmware and audio data are contained in flash-memory, which can be reprogrammed in the field without opening the unit.  The firmware was written in C and in 8051 assembly-language.
• The "fx controllers" (targets).  A device somewhat similar to the gun/vests, but for controlling the targets within the arena.  Though similar, it has completely different hardware and firmware from the gun/vests.
• The "game computer".  The game computer is an off-the-shelf (usually Pentium-based) PC, running the Laser Trek software under MS-DOS.  It provides very flexible means of controlling the other elements of the system, receiving status information from the guns and targets in real time, collecting scoring data, scripting actions such as playback of audio (WAVE) files and/or CDs, and printing scorecards.  Its software is written entirely in C.
• The "lighting controllers".  This is an 8051-based device which can control a large number (>100) of outputs with millisecond timing-resolution.  It is used for creating a number of miscellaneous stand-alone special effects involving sequencing of lights and/or playback of audio.  Its firmware is written in 8051 assembly language.