The JAVA based Android Studio reminds be a lot of the Visual C++ "programming environment": wicked complicated for the beginner and installing the software is not trivial. I'm hoping JAVA will be like C++ in that once you'd set up all the installation and configuration stuff, you can find example programs on-line and cut-n-paste programs together. I followed this YouTube tutorial
and had no problem getting it to communicate with my phone and run the tutorial "Hello World" program.
A lot of the programming functions are designed for making graphic interfaces (GUI) for all the different phones, and I'm thinking this complexity won't be a problem for our robotics use. I'm thinking that the programming will be mostly communications stuff between phones and the FTC controller thingy, and the algorithms for robot control.
Since I'm too impatient to wait for the FTC hardware, I've purchased one of these:
SparkFun IOIO boards which "
connects an app on your PC or Android device to low-level peripherals like GPIO, PWM, ADC, I2C, SPI, and UART" I'll set up a test-bed with some servos and hopefully will have a hardware/software set-up that will allow study of the new control system's capabilities.
