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. Big Al says… • 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  A brief moment of optimism usually followed by a crushing downfall! Warning: DO NOT BE FOOLED! Pain  Time – Lots Of It!

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