how to animate collapse elements in flutter

If you want to collapse a widget to zero height or zero width that has a child that overflow when collapsed, I would recommend SizeTransition or ScaleTransition.

Here is an example of the ScaleTransition widget being used to collapse the container for the four black buttons and status text. My ExpandedSection widget is used with a column to get the following structure.

An example of a Widget that use animation with the SizeTransition widget:

class ExpandedSection extends StatefulWidget {

  final Widget child;
  final bool expand;
  ExpandedSection({this.expand = false, this.child});

  @override
  _ExpandedSectionState createState() => _ExpandedSectionState();
}

class _ExpandedSectionState extends State<ExpandedSection> with SingleTickerProviderStateMixin {
  AnimationController expandController;
  Animation<double> animation; 

  @override
  void initState() {
    super.initState();
    prepareAnimations();
    _runExpandCheck();
  }

  ///Setting up the animation
  void prepareAnimations() {
    expandController = AnimationController(
      vsync: this,
      duration: Duration(milliseconds: 500)
    );
    animation = CurvedAnimation(
      parent: expandController,
      curve: Curves.fastOutSlowIn,
    );
  }

  void _runExpandCheck() {
    if(widget.expand) {
      expandController.forward();
    }
    else {
      expandController.reverse();
    }
  }

  @override
  void didUpdateWidget(ExpandedSection oldWidget) {
    super.didUpdateWidget(oldWidget);
    _runExpandCheck();
  }

  @override
  void dispose() {
    expandController.dispose();
    super.dispose();
  }

  @override
  Widget build(BuildContext context) {
    return SizeTransition(
      axisAlignment: 1.0,
      sizeFactor: animation,
      child: widget.child
    );
  }
}

AnimatedContainer also works but Flutter can complain about overflow if the child is not resizable to zero width or zero height.

Alternatively you can just use an AnimatedContainer to mimic this behavior.

class AnimateContentExample extends StatefulWidget {
  @override
  _AnimateContentExampleState createState() => new _AnimateContentExampleState();
}

class _AnimateContentExampleState extends State<AnimateContentExample> {
  double _animatedHeight = 100.0;
  @override
  Widget build(BuildContext context) {
    return new Scaffold(
      appBar: new AppBar(title: new Text("Animate Content"),),
      body: new Column(
        children: <Widget>[
          new Card(
            child: new Column(
              mainAxisAlignment: MainAxisAlignment.center,
              crossAxisAlignment: CrossAxisAlignment.center,
              children: <Widget>[
                new GestureDetector(
                  onTap: ()=>setState((){
                    _animatedHeight!=0.0?_animatedHeight=0.0:_animatedHeight=100.0;}),
                  child:  new Container(
                  child: new Text("CLICK ME"),
                  color: Colors.blueAccent,
                  height: 25.0,
                    width: 100.0,
                ),),
                new AnimatedContainer(duration: const Duration(milliseconds: 120),
                  child: new Text("Toggle Me"),
                  height: _animatedHeight,
                  color: Colors.tealAccent,
                  width: 100.0,
                )
              ],
            ) ,
          )
        ],
      ),
    );
  }
}