[EricVanWyk]

If I can toot my own horn a bit, the new version of LabVIEW that FTC and FLL are using this year have a few features that could make it easier for you to pick up these things faster.

The Joystick editor allows you to quickly try out different behaviours before you have to write any code. Then the code generator can write LabVIEW code for you that uses the FTC template.

You are describing arcade drive, but with an unusual selection of which axes go where. Try creating configuration that uses arcade steering, code-gen it, and then modify it to use the axes you want.