While mildly off-topic for this thread, I'd like to highlight an alternative to the Robot Controller dilema. Our team uses a 400 Mhz co-processor to do all of our calculations, the only thing the IFI controller does is send out PWM values (so that we stay within the rules). This means that teams could work on and test software development with nothing more than a laptop.
If you're interested, you can find information about the project
here on our
website. The pages include a detailed description of what we're working on, downloadable trails, a tutorial for getting yourself started, and personal support information.