TeleBuddy is a robotic arm teleoperation system built for HackTheCoast. A set of potentiometers maps to servo motors on a 6-DOF arm; the ESP32-S3 firmware bridges the physical controls to the actuators over WiFi/UDP, and a Python simulation provides an optional 3D visualisation of the arm's end-effector.

The firmware lives in HackTheCoast_FW.zip and is built with PlatformIO targeting the freenove_esp32_s3_wroom board using the Arduino framework.

1. Connects to WiFi on boot.
2. Opens a UDP socket on port 8888 and waits for incoming packets.
3. Parses each packet as JSON:

   {"pots": [v0, v1, v2, v3, v4, v5]}

   where each value is in the range 0–270.
4. Maps pots[3] → Servo 1 angle and pots[4] → Servo 2 angle using Arduino's map() (0–270 → 0–180°).
5. Outputs debug information over UART at 115 200 baud.

# install PlatformIO CLI if needed
pip install platformio

# unzip the firmware, enter the project directory
unzip HackTheCoast_FW.zip
cd HackTheCoast

# build
pio run

# flash (connect ESP32-S3 via USB)
pio run --target upload

# open serial monitor
pio device monitor

Edit src/main.cpp and update the SSID/password constants before flashing:

const char* ssid     = "YourSSID";
const char* password = "YourPassword";

A lightweight 3D visualisation runs on the host PC. It renders a virtual soldering-iron above a PCB and moves the iron in real time using forward kinematics fed from the same UDP potentiometer data.

# create and activate a virtual environment
python -m venv .venv

# Windows
.venv\Scripts\Activate.ps1

# Linux / macOS
source .venv/bin/activate

# install dependencies
pip install -r requirements.txt

# run the simulation
python main.py

Potentiometers → ESP32-S3 ADC
    → UDP/JSON (port 8888)
        → reciever.py (background thread)
            → forward_kin.py (6-DOF FK)
                → main.py (Ursina 3D scene)

python -m pytest test_receiver.py