Designing Robot Swarms was a 5-year research project that I worked on during my PhD and Postdoc.
I needed a
website that could be promoted in the academic circles, as well to robotics enthusiasts, and that clearly showcased the various aspects of the project.
The website structure
The home page features a
hand-drawn diagram of how various aspects of the research projects fit together.
Because the project focused on the full development cycle of creating robot swarms, integration of the various parts was the most important thing to get across.
Various topic keywords that a visitor can click through are organized around the diagram.
The website is divided into
five main sections, accessible through the
menu across the top right of the website's home page.
The
content of the menu changes based on which section is being viewed. This is because visitors are mostly expected to arrive to relevant pages through links shared on the web and,
given significant topical differences between the sections, are more likely to want to interact with content within a given section.
That being said, it is always possible to get
back to the website's home page using the project name link on the top.
Content and challenges
The biggest challenge of making this website was
taking scientific content, which is often wordy and full of equations, and
making it look engaging to a visitor.
This was achieved by using
attention-grabbing images and diagrams instead of words whenever possible.
A section of the website also served as a
landing page for Sketch BDRML, a research tool that enabled users to create design diagrams for robot swarms.
You can
read more about the Sketch BDRML project here.