[FTC]: Programming for FTC? [New Israeli Team]

[GuyM142]

Hey everyone,
FIRST Israel will run a pilot FTC program for 20 teams in Israel starting next season and my FRC team might mentor one team in our school.

I have some questions regarding the program of the robot:
1) I've read that because of Qualcomm all teams now have to use java, is that true? If not what are the options? (Our FRC team is using LabVIEW so...)
2) In Israel the students in FTC will be from 8th to 10th grade only, what is the best way of teaching students with no background how to program in java?
3) How much time is needed in order to reach a good level for a good FTC robot? Are there any simulators which we can use to learn the robot's libraries?

Thank you!

[orangemoore]

1) Yes everyone will use a version of Java Programming

2) FIRST is going to have resources coming out. And there is stuff online

3) No one has programmed with Java for FTC yet at the competition level. It will be hard to tell how hard it would be.


FIRST has been putting FTC resources out on these websites:

http://www.usfirst.org/roboticsprograms/ftc/technologyus

http://ftcforum.usfirst.org/forumdisplay.php?156-FTC-Technology

[FTC5110]

If they've got no background in programming then maybe look at MIT App Inventor instead of Java for their first season.
http://ftcforum.usfirst.org/forumdisplay.php?160-MIT-App-Inventor