Here is the 2014 Beta WPLib. Gives us the ability to poke around the 2014 libraries. It really isn't intended for us rookie teams but as we get smarter we may want to review.
Page that speaks about a programming method. The best feature of this method is that the design supports having the robot doing multiple things at once. Should be a big help in our performance at the challenges.
What is Command based programming?
WPILib supports a method of writing programs called "Command based programming". Command based programming is a design pattern to help you organize your robot programs. Some of the characteristics of robot programs that might be different from other desktop programs are:
Activities happen over time, for example a sequence of steps to shoot a Frisbee or raise an elevator and place a tube on a goal.
These activities occur concurrently, that is it might be desirable for an elevator, wrist and gripper to all be moving into a pickup position at the same time to increase robot performance.
It is desirable to test the robot mechanisms and activities each individually to help debug your robot.
Often the program needs to be augmented with additional autonomous programs at the last minute, perhaps at competitions, so easily extendable code is important.
Command based programming supports all these goals easily to make the robot program much simpler than using some less structured technique.
Low level programming interface to robot hardware. This page references the classes that we are going to need to control all the sensors, actuators, driver station, and event interface. It will show you how to access all the hardware items on the robot.
Main entry page to the 2013 Robot Builder Java code generator. We get this tool as part of the Java programming interface to the robot controller. It is graphical code generator written in Java. It will automatically create all the basic java classes and methods that you can edit to create the robot program. It also has built in code for doing the download to the robot. So when you run the code in the Netbean's IDE it will compile and upload the result to the robot. Very cool.
This is a FRC page that talks about CAD, It has a link to the Kit of Parts modeled in AutoDesk Inventor. It also has lots of other links CAD resources.
This page has the JAVA Platform Standard Edition 7 API Specification. This is where you want to go to see all the packages, classes, and methods for JAVA SE 7
This is 670 pages for the JAVA Language specification. It is a must have if you are learning the JAVA language. It has all the syntax, grammar, statements, classes, interfaces, data types, etc. etc.
NI 9403 is a controller module. C series 32 channel, 5 volt TTL bidirectional digital I/O module. This page has links to the Data sheet, and other documentation for this module.
NI 9201 module for the FRC controller. 8 analog inputs. This is the support page with links to the Catalog page, Data sheet, Calibration procedures, Operating instructions, and much more.
Provider of drive belts. This page has a form on it that will help you calculate belt length, center distance, and speed ratios. Gates is a major sponsor of the First(FRC) robotic challenges.