[JesseK]

If you're bored or antsy, make an OI GUI that fits on the Netbook. You'll find that it's not as easy as it appears and will be more applicable to the places you encounter Java programming later in life. You'll deal with user preferences, "pretty" concepts, real-time Java issues, Java comms protocols, states of the gui, and (hopefully) good OO programming practices via design patterns.

Things that you know you'll want are battery voltage and sensor outputs. You could make the dials or meters now and drive it with arbitrary data. Then work on the comms protocols. Then put the driver in a different Java process to test the Comms with the GUI. Then, once the season hits you'll have an understanding of how to hook the Java GUI into the cRIO once we know the protocols used. We did it for the '09 game, so we know it's possible.