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The home of disclaimers, prefaces and good lucks!

Hello friends!

Hello friends! Whether you’ve stumbled upon this by way of internet-magic or have been directed here intentionally, I’d like to: 1st, welcome you1 and 2nd, give you some background information and some general disclaimers that I felt were necessary but didn’t know where to put.

So…

DISCLAIMER: I AM NOT AN EXPERT.2

What exactly is this?

This is a collection of articles and explainers for different coding-related concepts and hardware for the :FIRST Tech Challenges. All guides are written primarily for Java.

But… maybe let’s start with what this isn’t…

  • This is NOT the be-all and end-all of guides or educational content for FIRST.
  • This is NOT the most comprehensive explanation of how things work.
  • This is certainly NOT a step-by-step tutorial on how to build the best robot.3

This is a jumping off point! A way I wish I had to introduce myself to concepts and components used in code.

Finally, as you’ve probably noticed these explainers use a few helpful tools:

We use :nutshells! <— Click on this to open

And we use little feetnotes4. <— Hover over the square! Powered by littlefoot.js

Why should we trust you?

As I’ve said before, I am no expert, so maybe you shouldn’t trust me? But I have been competing as part of my high school’s FTC team5 for the past two years and over that time I have built a knowledge and understanding I would deem as: proficient

Browse the articles and see if my explanations are something you might like, it won’t hurt!

Good luck!

:x What is the FIRST Tech Challenge?

The FIRST Tech Challenge is an annual robotics competitions targeted towards teenagers and young adults hosted by FIRST. If you’d like to learn more click here!

:x Nutshell

Woah! An expandable textbox! Perfect to describe things in detail or go off on tangents.

Credit to the awesome developer, Nicky Case!

See this :nutshell on nutshells for more!

:x End Nutshells

Footnotes

  1. Welcome! ↩

  2. Everything compiled in these articles has been developed by my own experience coding for the FIRST Tech Challenge. There are plenty of much more comprehensive resources out there (some of which I’ll show you). These are simply some tips I wish I had when I began learning! ↩

  3. That one is on you! ↩

  4. 🦶🎵 ↩

  5. Go Nighthawks! ↩