[tr6scott]

Look to the coding club, see what languages students already know. Our school does not teach programming, but students already interested in programming, already have a key ingredient, the ability to be self taught.

Look for parents that have of students that have IT background, to help mentor.

Keep, or build a running bot, so programmers can have 100% access to it in the off season.

I am probably one of the worst programmers on our team, and I am the mentor. I am a controls engineer by trade, look to see if parents in school have a controls background. They will bring a key element to know how a machine thinks, and sequences. We have a keen eye for recognizing the difference between something working, and something being controlled correctly. Look for a controls engineering company around, to support team, and mentor.

Look to the FTC program, as incoming freshmen will now have java experience from FTC. We are a labview team, but as our FTC feeder team moved to Java, (as all of FTC I think) it maybe time to move to Java?

Use a language that students and mentors are most comfortable with.

If you have a robot to program, and you have 1 mentor, and 3 students willing to do 16 hours a month, over the next 6 months, you will probably have one strong programming team ready for next years challenge.