You typically want lots of room for your file editor in the middle and a project explorer visible at all times. Feel free to drag and drop the various tabs wherever you want. Your window may seem a little cluttered right now with boxes along all the edges taking up space. Press OK when you have decided on a name and have typed it in the provided text field. I would suggest that you do something like 'TeamName2014'. Avoid using spaces or special characters other than a hyphen or an underscore. Change the name of your project to anything you want. Then right-click IterativeTemplate and select rename. In your project explorer, right-click sample.txt and select delete, then press OK. To start off you will want to clean up your project a little bit. For the purposes of this tutorial, chose IterativeTemplate. Even if you want to program everything from scratch, you should still start your project using one of these examples because they setup all the includes, build configurations, flags, etc. Clicking on one of the options will reveal more information on what it contains. You should then be presented with a list of projects that have been written for you.
> VxWorks Downloadable Kernel Module Sample Project. If you wish to see or use the example programs provided by FIRST, File > New > Example. This will be the location of all your source files along with various other files such as output files and configuration files. I would suggest creating a folder in your Documents called something like "FRCWorkspace". You will encounter a popup asking what workspace you wish to use. You will not notice any new applications installed after installing the toolchain.
After going through the installation process, you next have to install the FRC roboRIO Toolchain which can be downloaded by going to and selecting the link for your operating system. To install this, go to, and find the download labeled Eclipse IDE for C/C++ developers. To start off, you will want to install Eclipse on the computer of your choice. If however you want to look at instructions more relevant for previous years for some reason, please check out the archived version of this page here. I have updated this instructable accordingly. Update: Programming an FRC Robot significantly changed in 2015, especially in terms of setup. There are many online resources you can use to learn C++, such as thenewboston, thecplusplusguy, or.
A basic understanding of C++ is necessary to understand some of the terms used in this instructable and to be able to adapt your code to your team's specific needs.
I was the programmer for Team 4733 – Scarlett Robotics and in this tutorial I will be covering how to program a FIRST Robotics Competition robot using C++ and WPILib. For more information on this great organization, visit.
FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC) is a worldwide competition they hold every year to give high school students the opportunity to build their very own robot from scratch and compete with and against other teams. For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology (FIRST) is an organization with the mission of inspiring young people to become involved in science and technology through the use of programs that give them hands-on experience in various engineering and technological areas.