[DonRotolo]

Hello and welcome to Chief Delphi! We are all excited about the program in NZ and some of us just wish we could travel there to help. Instead I'll settle for this virtual travel.

Many of the details of the new robot controller are not fully known by us, and there is a program being run where several very high-profile teams will be given beta-test samples to learn how they work and share with the rest of us. So, wait a few months for more details, and browse through these forums for some info as well.

The new RC will have 802.11 wifi capabilities, and you'll be able to communicate with it from a laptop. I very much doubt you will be allowed to control it from a laptop, since the computing power may give a team an unfair advantage - but this won't really be known until January 3, 2009 when the rules are released.

In the past, FIRST and the community released so-called "Default Code" which was a solid base on which any team could build their competition robot control software. Default code in past years included several high-level features, as well as basic drive and steering stuff. I am absolutely confident that similar default code will be available this year as well. Plan on customizing it for your particular robot, but much of the code you'll need will be there for you to understand.

Hope this helps!

Don