1. So you want to be a programmer!!!! Presented By: Frank Larkin Lansdale Catholic Robotics, Team 272 Philadelphia PA, Dec. 2013

2. Big Al says…

3. Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new. Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds. Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. It’s not that I’m so smart, it’s just that I stay with problems longer. Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is not to stop questioning.

4. Think like a programmer!! “Robots” can sense the world around it. –Some sensors tell it what the CBU’s want. Joysticks – tell it power levels in a direction. Button switches – tell if the button is pressed or not. –Some sensors give the Robot a number that represents how far something is from something else. –Some sensors give a number that represents how much the robot has veered from a straight line. –Your program will make use of those sensors. What to we tell it to do? –“ We ” tell it nothing!!!!! –“We” vary the power to motors to apply force –“We” activate relays to turn on or off motors, lights and other shiny objects. –“We” activate and deactivate actuators (pneumatics – air systems) to apply force. We program the robot a somewhat human readable language. –For FRC, JAVA, C++, Labview –Eventually you will learn to think in that language.

5. Development Cycle Joy Pain  Time – Lots Of It! A brief moment of optimism usually followed by a crushing downfall! Warning: DO NOT BE FOOLED!

6. Final Thought Unlike baseball crying is allowed in software development… but … …when you’re done, get back and make it work!