[PhilBot]

There's a lot to absorb in the first few weeks of the competition, and only SOME of that is technology based information.

This year National Instruments included a cool little printed manual in the Competition Kit. It's called:

"Getting Started with NI LabVIW and FTC"

And although it's targeted directly at LabVIEW users, it also provides some fudemental building and testing information that applies to ALL the programming languages.

I STRONGLY recommend that anyone interested in building up their first FTC robot should consider starting with the robot described in this manual. It's not likely to win any creativity awards, but it's a good solid workhorse that will let you get up and running quickly to evaluate the mechanics and any software that you choose to use.

I was able to provide input into the control system side of the manual, so I did my best to include as many "tips" as possible to help rookies avoid those "D'oh" moments.

Hopefully this manual will also be online soon, so I'll add a link when I see it.

Good luck to everyone this season.

Phil.