I think to start off you should get a copy of Kevin's code that includes the serial port library at
http://kevin.org/frc/
You should probably go for
this one, as it is a pretty baseline version (none of the camera etc stuff you don't need).
Inside you'll find a document about "using previous rc" or something along those lines, and you'll have to follow the instructions inside. You need to do this since the edu rc has an "older"/different chip than the current one.
Once you get the default code to compile and run, come back and we'll start with the serial port communication.