Ship’s Log: A New Command Tablet Joins the Fleet

October 8, 2026

Sometimes a new project arrives disguised as something entirely ordinary. This time it was an Acer Iconia Tab A11: an 11-inch Android tablet purchased with Walmart gift certificates for just $35 out of pocket. Its first duties are straightforward—watching videos, reading web comics, and keeping useful reference material close to hand.

Then, naturally, the Captain started thinking about what else it could do.

The Captain’s Tablet

The idea is to build a lightweight, touch-friendly StormyOS interface that runs in the tablet’s browser, leaving the heavier work to the existing Raspberry Pi Bridge Computer and other Maker Lab systems. Four departments are on the drawing board:

• StormyOS Command Deck: status and links for the Bridge Computer, servers and Docker services.
• Engineering Reference Station: schematics, pinouts, GitHub repositories and workshop documentation.
• Tactical Pirate Quarterdeck: a convenient way to access the handheld’s existing web interface and review missions and telemetry.
• Ember Station: lighting controls, weather, clocks and a little fox-inspired mischief.

The first milestone is a simple four-department home screen. Integration and testing will follow, with no need to root the tablet or expose server administration to the public internet.

For now, this is a project concept—not a finished or commissioned system. But it is a fine example of the Maker Lab philosophy: take something useful, ask what else it could become, and start sketching.

Think Like A Captain. Play Like a Pirate.