I found that the fastest, easiest way to get a rich user interface was to use HTML5. The Raspberry Pi is configures with an internal web browser and kweb is setup to launch in fullscreen mode after startup. This also allows for a smart phone to connect to the web-server externally for future control.

To make development faster, I am using jQuery Mobile to make the interface. cgi is used to launch python scripts that fire the servos and read the sensors.