More Engineering help - asking for a friend (really!) - clamshell obs automation

[Helen]

I have a friend in Spain with a clamshell observatory.  He's getting less mobile/agile.  His clamshell has developed some issues and the effort of manhandling it at the end of the night is now too difficult/risky.  He'd like to automate it.  He has seen people use RPi for control of other types of observatory, but can't quite see how that could be adapted for a clamshell. 

I assured him someone on here would be able to help!  So.... any suggestions?

Thanks 

Helen