Starting programming...

[Greg McKaskle]

Perhaps a year ago, someone mentioned the Project Euler site. This is similar to how I learned to program. Pick a language and take a crack at a few problems. Once you have your bearings, may I suggest trying one of the other languages, and perhaps even the third. Given a problem to apply your programming to, try out different tools -- video tutorials, written tutorials, examples, reference books, etc.

If math isn't your thing, obviously there are other good ways to learn how to program, but coming to grips with what is commonly referred to as scientific programming, or numerical programming is, I think, similar to much of what you'll see on the robot. Of course the robot will introduce you to many other concepts as well, but if you are good at the numerical stuff, I think you'll find the rest easy to pick up.

Greg McKaskle