Introducing Strongback, a Java library for FRC robots

[randallh]

I'm pleased to announce the first release of Strongback, a new open source Java library that makes your robot code lighter and stronger. You use it along with the WPILib library on your FIRST Robotics Competition robot's RoboRIO, but Strongback's APIs are easier to use and make it possible for you to test your much of your code without robot hardware. The latest release works with the most recent 2015 version of the WPILib library, though we'll release a new version for 2016 on kickoff day.

To help you get started, we've created an online book called "Using Strongback" that goes into detail about Strongback, its features, and how you can use it on your robot. All of the code is open source and available on our GitHub repository at http://strongback.org, so you can fork it and submit pull requests. If you want a quick introduction, view the slides from a recent overview presentation. We also have a discussion forum if you have questions or report problems, and follow us on Twitter @strongbacklib to receive the news.

The Strongback project originated with FRC4931, who presented their approach for designing testable robot code at the 2015 FIRST World Championships Conference. When lots of teams at the conference expressed interest in the concept, team 4931 extracted the library from their 2015 robot codebase and created Strongback.

Now the Strongback project is operated as a community-centric open source project. We hope that many teams want to use Strongback and contribute to our community by using the library, asking or answering questions, reporting problems, writing documentation, fixing bugs, discussing plans, and developing new features. Find out more here.

We hope you take a look and that Strongback helps you create more robust robot code!