Starting Up

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.

First Blog Ever

This Blog will be for my 20 Time project.  Before I tell you what the project is you will need some background.  There is an organization called FIRST that is designed to further the knowledge of STEM.  For those of you who don't know STEM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics, also for those of you who don't know FIRST stands for, For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology.  I am on a FIRST robotics team.  In FIRST robotics they give us a new game to complete every year and every year we have to build a robot from scratch that completes this task.  I mainly work on the mechanical side of the robot but would like to learn how to program the robot that I have a hand in building.  My goal is to learn how to program the robot.

 From what I have been told this will not be an easy task. Programming a robot is much more complicated then any program that you make in programming class.  This week I will look at what software and what programming skills that I need to complete this goal.

While I am attempting this I will be consulting several of my team mentors and the programmers on my team for advise and mentoring on how you program a robot.