Edu Onboarding
Please don't skip any steps during this onboarding process, it always results in pain down the road as we try to figure out which steps you did/didn't do! If you run into any problems at all don't hesitate to reach out to other people on the programming team, we're here to help!
Follow the instructions below to get accounts for the following services.
If you are using a team laptop - create your own user account on the machine. Initially login as the Xbot account, and use that to make your own account.
We store all of our code in git on github. If you aren't familiar with the terms source control or git, read Git Introduction.
- If you don't already have one, sign up for an account at http://www.github.com
- Ask someone on the programming team (including students) to add you to the xbot project.
- You'll get an invite in the mail to join the group. You have to click the link in this email to join the team488 organization in github.
Slack is kind of a modern IRC chat tool and we use it as our primary communication tool. To get an invite to xbots account bug one of the Programming mentors with your email address.
If you are using a shared team laptop, it's possible this software is already set up on it and you don't need to do it again. The quick test is see if there's a program called "2024 WPILib VS Code" on the computer or not. If it's there skip the rest of this page.
- Go to https://desktop.github.com/ and click the "Download for Windows" button.
- Run the installer. It won't ask any questions. It will open GitHub Desktop when it's done.
- Click "Sign in to Github.com" and sign in with your account.
Note: It is easy to miss a step here, read the instructions carefully!
- Follow the WPILib Installation Guide steps.
- When in GitHub to download your appropriate installers, scroll down until you reach "assets" and choose your appropriate installer. Continue following the Instructions.
- Download and run the WPILibInstaller, it will prompt you to select All Users or Current User, select either.
- There will be checkboxes signaling whether or not you have the required files. If greyed out and checked it means it is installed, otherwise the installer will install what you need.
- If you do not have VSCode (Visual Studio Code) click the button that says: "Select/Download VS Code" then, if you have the OfflineVsCode zip, press "select Existing Download" and point the directory towards it (you don't have to unzip the file), if not click the button that says: "Download".
- After you press "Execute Install" the Install should take about 5 minutes.
- After you're finished, run VSCode from the new icon that is created on your desktop after restarting your computer.
- Go into the Extensions tab by either clicking the square icon (see example on the right) on the left ribbon, or by pressing CTRL+SHIFT+X.
- Enter
vscjava.vscode-java-testinto the search box, and select Java Test Runner. - Click on the "Install" button.
- Go here to download the IntelliJ Community installer if you're on Windows. If you're not on Windows, find the IntelliJ Community installer here. On Windows, you can use the .exe installer.
- Run the installer. The default settings in the installer should work fine.
- Launch IntelliJ Community.
- Find the plugins tab and install the following plugins: FRC, CheckStyle-IDEA, VSCode Keymap (optional, but recommended).
- Restart IntelliJ.
- From the Welcome screen on the Projects tab, find the link to Configure FRC Team Number. Enter 488 in the dialog box and save the team number.
- From the Welcome screen, on the Customize tab, select VSCode under Keymap (optional, but recommended).