FIRST – General
- FIRST – The official website of FIRST
- FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC) – The official website for FRC
- FIRST Tech Challenge (FTC) – The official website for FTC
- FIRST LEGO League (FLL) – The official website for FLL
- Junior FIRST LEGO League (Jr.FLL) – The official website for Jr.FLL
- FIRSTCO – The official website for the FIRST competition in Colorado
- FIRST Forums – The official forums of FIRST
- Chief Delphi – The most widely used forum by FIRST members
- FIRSTwiki – A wiki containing useful information about FIRST
- The Blue Alliance – Contains a list of the various FIRST events occurring throughout the year
- FIRSTWorldTube – The official YouTube channel for FIRST
Suppliers
- AndyMark – The official supplier for the FIRST Robotics Competition
- McMaster-Carr – A supplier providing various commonly-used parts, such as bolts and tubing
Programming – General
- FIRST Robotics Resource Center – A set of resources created by the Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) for use with FIRST competitions
- LabVIEW – A graphical programming environment used to develop measurement, test, and control systems using features that resemble a flowchart.
FRC Java
- Java Runtime Environment – Also known as JRE, the environment used for Java so that you can run Java applications on your computer
- Java Development Kit – Also known as JDK, the base development kit for all Java applications. This includes all the standard classes required for Java development. FRC.
- NetBeans – The programming integrated development environment (IDE) for Java that we use to program for the robot
- WPI Java Updates– Updates for programming with Java in the FRC season
- Getting Started With Java for FRC – An introduction for using Java for the FRC competition
- Getting Started with Microsoft Kinect for FRC – An introduction for using the Kinect for the FRC competition
- WPI Robotics Library User’s Guide – A guide to the WPI Robotics library (WPILib), with both C++ and Java code
- Mandatory LabVIEW Update – The update contains the new images and the imaging tool to work with Java or C++
- FIRST Forge: WPILib – The repository of Java and C++ code for programming for the FRC competition
Software Downloads
- Autodesk Inventor, FIRST Student Edition – Autodesk’s Inventor, 3D CAD modeling software, provided to FIRST students for free
- DraftSight – Free 2D CAD software that allows users to modify DWG files easier
VEXGeneral
- VEX Robotics – The official website of VEX
- RobotEvents – The Robotics Education and Competition Foundation’s official community portal for robotics and technology in education
- VEX Robotics Competition – The VEX Robotics Competition on RobotEvents
- VEX Design Challenge – VEX‘s online design challenges
Web DevelopmentGeneral
- Mozilla Developer Network Documentation Center – A comprehensive documentation of widely-used HTML, CSS, JavaScript, HTML5, Ajax, and DOM-related information
- Dev.Opera – A number of web developer-related articles written by fellow web developers; one of them is an introduction to the web standards
- QuirksMode – A site giving information about browser compatibility with HTML elements, CSS attributes, JavaScript functions, etc., with its “famous” compatibility tables
- HTML Dog – A very useful introduction to HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, as well as a reference to HTML tags and CSS properties
- SitePoint Reference – References for commonly-used HTML, CSS, and JavaScript elements, properties, concepts, etc.
- Nettuts+ – A site that offers tutorials and articles on technologies, skills, and techniques to help developers improve design and build websites
- Stack Overflow – A programming Q&A site that contains questions (and answers) to problems that other programmers have
- PHP Manual – The PHP manual located on the official site for PHP
- PHP 101: PHP For the Absolute Beginner – A series of guides written for those who are new to PHP and wish to learn more about the language
Server
- Apache – The open source HTTP server that powers this site
- MySQL – The open source database that stores information for this site
- PHP – The open source server-side scripting language employed on this site to create dynamic pages
Content Management Systems (CMS)
- Drupal – An open source CMS that can be used to power a website, from blogs to enterprise sites
- CMS Made Simple (CMSMS) – An CMS that is easy to set up and use; it can also be scaled for different websites
Validators
- W3C Markup Validation Service – A validator created by the W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) to check the markup validity of web pages
- W3C CSS Validation Service – A validator that checks the validity of CSS markup on web pages
- W3C Feed Validation Service – A validator that checks the validity of Atom and RSS feeds on websites
- HiSoftware Cynthia Says Portal – An automated accessibility validator that checks for Section 508 and WCAG 1.0 compliance
JavaScript Libraries
- jQuery– A fast JavaScript library that simplifies JavaScript coding for faster web development
- jQuery UI (User Interface) – A collection of effects and widgets built on top of the jQuery library that provide the tools for an interactive web application
- jQuery Mobile – A JavaScript framework designed for mobile devices
- jQuery Documentation – The documentation for the jQuery JavaScript library
- Prototype – A JavaScript framework that aims to ease development of dynamic web applications created with JavaScript
- Dojo – A JavaScript library that saves time, delivers powerful performance, and scales with the development process
- YUI (Yahoo! User Interface) – A JavaScript library developed by Yahoo! developers that allows for building richly interactive web applications
- MooTools – A compact, object-oriented JavaScript framework designed to write powerful, flexible, and cross-browser code with its well-documented API
Server-side JavaScript
- node.js – An server-side JavaScript environment that uses an asynchronous event-driven model
- Rhino – An open-source implementation of JavaScript written entirely in Java, typically embedded into Java applications to provide scripting capabilities
Firefox Add-ons
- Firebug – An add-on that puts a wealth of web development tools, such as inspecting and modifying a web page’s HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, at a developer’s fingertips while browsing through web pages
- Web Developer – An add-on that adds a toolbar that contains various web developer tools useful for web developers
- Greasemonkey – An add-on that allows a user to run a specific script on a particular web page
- HTML Validator – An add-on that adds HTML validation in the form of an icon; any HTML errors can be seen while viewing the source of a web page