Help, I'm a world class computer programming genius yet I'm totally lost.

[Steve_Alaniz]

HAH! NOW aren't you sorry you didn't listen to your mother when she told you to stop coding, get off that computer and ...build a Circuit! (Sorry, I'm mainly a Tech Type...)
One thing I'm not sure anyone mentioned was the Dashboard Monitor.
The robot may be a pile of parts but if you can tether the Robot controller, power up the Operator Interface and using the Dashboard Program, download and At least see the effects on the PWM and buttons.
The with minimal hardware just power a relay or use a switch to see the inputs. Things like that.
You could do some simple programming while the robot is being build instead of waiting.
Hope this was a useful suggestion.

Good luck

Steve