DIY Doesn't Need to Mean Ugly: Appropriating Web App Architecture for Your Maker Projects
Virtually Maker Faire 2020
May 22nd-23rd
When building home projects, especially with small SBCs like the Raspberry Pi, many makers tend to leave the user interface as an afterthought. Let's face it, we're all just worried about making it work, and it's hard to make GUIs, especially with Python on the Raspberry Pi and the Arduino!
It doesn't have to be that way, though, and if you're making something for consumption by other people, it behooves you to spend some time making the interface intuitive and effective and even attractive. After all, even if it's the greatest device in the world, a clunky, ugly user interface will detract from it, making users less likely to use it.
Using a recent model of the Raspberry Pi, you can use an Apache web server, the Flask web application libraries, some Python and some Javascript to make your interface easy to use and even attractive. I'll walk you through the process of installing a bare-bones setup that can do just what you need it to do and look just how you want it to look, using as an example a simple application, running on a Raspberry Pi, that reads and displays real-time information coming from an attached Arduino.
