The Launchpad and BoosterPack have their own quick guides and user guides. As the names imply, the quick guides serve as a brief overview of some important features of the boards, whereas the user guide goes into more depth. The MCU also has its own user guide, as well as a datasheet. The user guide reads similar to a book and is written not for a single MCU but for an MCU family which a set of MCUs with similar architecture and design. A datasheet on the other hand is specific to MSP432 and includes details that applies to this chip only. For software, there are guides for the DriverLib and the graphics library.

These important documents can be found under the “Technical Documents” page. Additionally, you can find tutorials on how to set up and use other applications that we will be using throughout this course under the "Tutorials" page.

Knowing which documents to search through will help you investigate parts of the microcontroller that you are unfamiliar with or unsure of. Although there may be not much use for these documents in the beginning of the course, they will become a valuable resource by the end of the course. After all, there is only so much in-class time to cover all the details. While the basics of how to work with the microcontroller can be taught through lectures, not every possibility can be covered. Thus, it lies upon the student to seek out the technical details and apply what they have learned to tackle unfamiliar problems. One of our goals this semester is to learn how to find the document that is helpful to your problem and learn how to read that document to get your answer.