Teach programmers

[bulbajackel]

What I'm doing to teach my programmers is that I start with Labview, explaining the basics the best I can. I give them hands on task to progress them along, giving them help when needed. I then assign them to learn things from codeacademy.com because it seems to help with why programming works and things.

[xisybyl]

It depends on your goal.

If your goal is to teach how to program an FRC robot in the least amount of time (in order to allow for testing of various components as well as driving practice), teach them LabVIEW. There are many free resources available as mentioned earlier in this thread. The teamrush27 programming guides are exceptional. See
http://www.teamrush27.net/rookie-resources

If your goal is just to teach programming skills, go ahead with either LabVIEW, C++ or Java, but expect to spend months on the Java/C++.

Contrary to popular belief, there ARE many technical programming jobs available using LabVIEW. (Search on labview job colorado since you are in Colorado.)

[armgeek]

I found myself in the same boat recently.

If you use java, a great thing to teach basic syntax as well as basic algorithmic thinking is coding-bat (www.codingbat.com).

Seeing as we have more time before build season starts, I also plan on wokring with the rookies with general java programming, as I feel that people who understand how to program in general are much better than people who can just program for robotics.

It may work to your advantage to work with new members on coding styles/practices as well, there's nothing worse than a religious war over tab sizes ruining your productive day.

Good luck!

[MrTimKlein]

A followup to a previous post. There is a Java option for the NXT too. Check out www.lejos.org. I don't have any direct tutorials for this, but I've used it with success on personal projects.

Mr. Tim Klein
"Code Guild" Mentor
FRC Team 3966 STEMpunks