Organizing many programmers

[Goldfire]

This is my first year involved with FIRST (joining other mentors with more experience) as the programming mentor. We have team of 30-40 students, of which about 15 are interested in programming. They range in programming experience/knowledge from nothing at all to halfway through AP Computer Science. My personal experience is quite deep in C/C++ and non-existent in LabVIEW. I have no experience with robots of any kind.

I'm looking for suggestions of how to organize my students. Would it make sense to split into some who will specialize in LabVIEW and some who will specialize in C++? Should they all learn both? Is this an unmanageable size and should I work to encourage some to find other pursuits?

Somewhat separately, is anyone aware of good websites teaching programming basics for those totally new to the field? We don't have adequate time to warm the complete newbies up, but I'm hoping they can learn on their own.

Thanks!