Skip to content

Understand the workspace

Opening the simulator (or a real robot) lands you in VS Code in the browser. Three areas matter:

1. The editor (center)

Regular VS Code — file explorer on the left, editor tabs, and a terminal (Ctrl+`). Your files live in ~/physicar_ws.

  • app.physicar in the file explorer is a bookmark — click it to open the robot console as an editor tab.

2. The PhysiCar app (app.physicar tab)

The robot's own console:

  • Sensor panels — camera view, lidar scan, IMU values, odometry, with a Reset at the bottom of the sensor column.
  • Control — drive the robot with on-screen controls or the keyboard.
  • VNC — the robot's desktop screen. The RViz button on its panel (bottom left) opens RViz.
  • MYAPP — your own robot web app, once you build one (MyApp).

3. The PhysiCar panel (right side)

The extension panel with four tabs:

  • Agent — the AI tutor: Chat and Realtime voice (start here).
  • Tutorials — picked at the top: Racing (Rule-Based), Racing (Machine Learning) (start here) and Robot APIs (runnable command cards for the robot's Web API and ROS 2).
  • System — the startup script (your commands that run at boot) and its log; back up your workspace to a zip or restore one.
  • Account — classroom, credits, sign out.

Check: you can see the file explorer, open app.physicar, and the panel shows the Agent tab → you're ready.

Simulator lifecycle & billing → Account & credits

AI