A selection of Starfleet and alien props designed by Rick from the series. Most designs began as felt pen and marker doodles for basic shapes, progressing to a cleaner blue pencil and hardline ink stage. Photocopies sometimes received full marker color treatments.
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Left: The "cricket" phaser Type I, not used much after Season 1.

Right Top: Type II phaser redesigned for Season 3.

Below: Redesigned Type II phaser in almost-finished shape.
Above: Some of the sketches for the Type II redesign.

Below: The original Season 1 "Dustbuster" Type II phaser. Clean lines, but accidentally deserving of its nickname.
Left: The Season 1 PADD, or Personal Access Display Device, as coined by long-time Trek writer Dorothy Fontana. Today, the PADD is rapidly becoming real in the form of the PDA, tablet computer, and color cell phone. While the imagined 24th century capabilities of the PADD still outstrip the PDA, the future is heading toward Trek technology faster than we ever imagined.
Left: Chief Engineer Geordi LaForge got his own special red PADD for engineerng matters.

Right: A "neurostimulator band," for assisting an alien in recovery from traumatic injury. Today, advances are being made in electrically stimulating muscles, in concert with computers, to someday allow people with spinal injuries to walk.
Right: A high-energy widget from the episode "Power Play." This device had typical Starfleet styling, straight lines with rounded edges and corners, with pulsing neon for that super-science feel.
Above: Everyone in the 24th century has PADDs, including the Klingons.
Left: An early sketch of the Starfleet communicator badge, when it was still a big piece of hardware (sketch is about 1.5x full size). Gene Roddenberry looked at it and said, "Why not just make the insignia the communicator?" And we made it so.

Right: Ferengi disruptor, with pistol grip. The actual prop was made without one.

Below: Ancient Iconian energy widget, complete with strange (but easy to read) labels.
Above Left: And of course, Geordi's VISOR, modeled after a producer-approved hair clip, which gave the Chief Engineer the amazing ability to see normally invisible wavelengths of light, subspace fields, and stealthy aliens.

Above Right: Last but not least, the Swiss Army Knife of Starfleet, the Tricorder, featuring a suite of multispectral sensors, a GPS locator, gigaquads of SFX-RAM, and maybe even the capability to darn your socks. While you sleep.