At CES Texas Instruments was showing off its new open source platform MAVRK. MAVRK is an acronym for Modular and Versatile Reference Kit. The MAVRK platform contains a motherboard, several MAVRK modules, and firmware to communicate between the modules. MAVRK modules are reference designs around TI silicon that will connect to the motherboard with a common footprint. With several modules connected, a user can configure multiple combinations of RF, AD/DA, transceivers, signal conditioning, and driver circuits as a system-level design. In the video one motherboard hosts the TCA8418 keypad scanner to sense user input. The MSP430F5438A on this motherboard decodes the keypad input for motor spin speed and the joystick direction for spin direction. It then beams this information to a second motherboard connected to robotic treads, with an MSP430F5137 processing the signals, and an MSP430F2274 controlling the signals to the DRV88414 motor driver. The DRV8814 drives the two motors that turn the robot treads.