WPILib Robot Builder developer tool

One of the difficulties that we have seen teams have looking at robot programs written in Java and C++ is getting the structure correct for future development and expansion of the program. Also there is the tendency to not develop the robot program until much of the hardware is finished. To help solve both of these problems we are releasing a Robot Builder development tool that will help develop a highly modifiable robot program very early in the 6 week design/build time.

The Robot Builder lets team members define all the subsystems on the robot adding more details as the mechanical/electrical design is fleshed out. The program is closely tied to the Command-based program model introduced for the 2012 season and extended for 2013. You can view a video of how to use RobotBuilder that quickly shows it’s major features.

You can also view a series of videos on building a robot program using RobotBuilder and the Command Based programming model. The total time is about 1 hour for all the videos and at the end, there is a program that has a fully featured autonomous mode and a teleop program with several functions.