New team needs help with gear tooth sensor

[zako234]

Hey guys, this is my school's first year with robotics, and we just got our robot moving for the first time today. I am our team's head programmer, and was chosen as the head programmer because i'm the only one who actually knows how to program in the first place. I am very skilled with Java and C#, and have figured out how to work with C for this competition.. Anyway, now that our little robot can move, I have to figure out how to do the autonomous mode. Anyway, i was considering using the (working) gear tooth sensor to figure out how far my robot is traveling, and hopefully get it to go where I want it to in the 15 seconds with that.

OK! now that we have the background worked out, I need help with the gear tooth sensor. I have absolutely no idea at all what-so-ever on how to use it, how to code for it, or even how to wire it. I downloaded the encoder code, however it's not quite making sense to me. Pretty simply, i just want to be able to figure out how far my robot is going. If anyone would be kind enough to donate any wisdom, or knowledge to me, I would be very appreciative.

-- EDIT--
I am using MPLAB