[pwilczynski]

If you have the resources, you might want to try and set up a motor board with maybe three motors, speed controllers, robot controller, battery, backup battery, sensors and maybe a servo. By using this instead of a robot you will be able to test all of your code before the robot is built and move very slowly through the process without havingyour build team hanging over your backs and trying to build stuff.
As for software, I would also go with EasyC, at least for the start. If you want to dive into the more complicated stuff, the default code is already programmed for two joystick control and certain other buttons doing other things. If you have any questions or comments, just post them. I'm sure you will get plenty of support.