Coding resources

Overview

This repository is a software onboarding path for new programmers, and for anyone else who wants to help with code. The license is MIT. GitHub's language statistic is Java because of a practice project; most of the repo is the written guide.

Problem

New programmers do not arrive knowing Java, GitHub, or the AI tools in the guide. The guide assumes a laptop, a GitHub account, and curiosity, and then teaches the loop it describes for robot code.

What he built

The path in the README is ordered: welcome, laptop setup, how robots are coded, GitHub (branch, commit, pull request), Cursor and Claude, when to use which tool, test and iterate, team workflow, and a first real contribution. Each student page is supposed to end with a step to do, not only to read.

The first win, about twenty minutes after setup, is adding a name to roster/TEAMMATES.md on a branch and opening a pull request. Mentors get four 90-minute session plans, a run-of-show checklist, and a rubric.

The practice project is practice/intake-brain: a small Java intake state machine and a distance-to-RPM table. It runs on a laptop with Java 17, no robot required:

cd practice/intake-brain
./gradlew test

The README's rule list is short: do not commit unread AI output, do not put secrets in the repo, do not retune live robot numbers unless a lead asks for a range day, do not push to someone else's repository unless asked, and prefer a small pull request.

Process

The tool table in the README assigns jobs rather than brands for their own sake. GitHub is the shared history. Cursor is the editor that can see the project's files. Claude is the reasoning partner inside that editor. Tests and sim are the check before driver practice. VS Code, search, and the WPILib docs stay in the loop. Questions go to GitHub issues on this repo, or to the software lead at practice.