To answer some of your questions my goal for this project is to learn how to program the robot and write code that actually works on this years robot. After learning this skill I do intend to try to put my knowledge to use and program future robots that I will help build.
I learned somethings in the last week about how robots are programmed, the most vital to starting this project is there are three languages I could potentially program in. The first is LabVIEW (Laboratory Virtual Engineering Workbench), it is developed by National Instruments and several FIRST teams that I have talked to and played with use this software. The next option is Java, which is a very common language for programming computer games. Again FIRST teams that I have talked to program in this language. Last there is C++, our team programs in this language. C++ is also the language that I will be learning to program the robot in. This is for several reasons, the first being I am currently taking a class on C++ in school and I did not want to throw learning a new programming language on top of the already enormous task of learning how to program a robot. The other reason is when our competition season ends we are going to start teaching next years programmers how to program the robot and they will be doing it in C++. I plan on attending these programming meetings on top of teaching my self out side of robotics. The last reason for my choice for choosing C++ is I can easily get the development software from the programmers on my team.
Next weekend I will have an opportunity to attend several workshops and seminars on how to program a robot during the 2014 FIRST championship. I will hopefully have lots to talk about when I get back about how to program a robot.
This is really cool. It sounds like you have a good plan for learning to program the robot. It's going to be pretty cool when you finish learning how to program. I'm excited to see the robot in action!
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