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A project log for Tortuguita

Open source, hackable, easy to build tracked robot kit.

jarmilJarmil 10/18/2024 at 08:210 Comments

So, Tortuguita kit is in production, and now I have to polish some thing that needs ... well .. polishing.

The control software ( repo here ) works fine, but the frontend UX was made with a standard hacker's attitude (it is ugly, but works) and also only for a relatively big screen on my IPad:

Obviously, the UX is little bit too big to fit onto the small smartphone screen and looks like a holy crap. That has to be changed:


The first step was to do something with this ugly big "power off" button.
Let's make use of great icon library  Font Awesome:

At least some part now looks better, right? But there are also those ugly sliders. Let's make 'em slightly more sexy (well maybe not so sexy as Factorio UX, but at least they not overhang):

Now it is time to get rid of tons of settings. Let's hide it under the standard cogwheel button...

.. play around with some styling....

... and finally wrap it up to a minimalist UX, where everything unnecessary is hidden, the "Panic" button is nicely yellow and buttons aligned:

Looks fine to me. I'm gonna tag is as "fine version 4" and go back to hardware work. Of course there are other things that can be enhanced, but ... you know :)

I'm glad I made a decision to build a simple, but powerful enough UX stack from React, Bootstrap and Font Awesome (instead of plain JS and CSS). The entire time to do all those tweaks was a little bit  longer than to write this log, but still a piece of cake.

Feel free to use/modify/remix the control software for your robotic project, it is opensource and the repo is here: repo here

Also, take a look at Tortuguita homepage where is also a complete or partial robotic kit available for sale.

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