He Blogs Again By Night...: Derek White, bits,bytes&JVMs

Here are some upcoming events where you can learn more about FIRST, the FIRST Robotics Competition, Java + FIRST, and FIRST @ Sun.

This Friday, for Sun employees, we will have one or two FRC teams visiting the Burlington, MA campus. They will show off their robots  - and you can learn about what FRC means to them, and about mentoring and volunteer opportunities that exist. I'll also be here to talk about Java on the FRC robots, and should have a robot to demo.

Sun has given FIRST a big platform at JavaOne to show off what FIRST is about. It's also a chance to announce that along with Java being available for the robotics competition next year comes a need for experienced Java developers to mentor teams all across the United States and internationally.

There will be live robot demos in the Pavillion, where you can also talk to teams, mentors, and volunteers about FIRST. There will be a Tech Session describing Java for FRC - both how it was ported and how it can be used (TS-4945), a Birds-Of-a-Feather session for existing FIRST participants as well as though interested in learning more (BOF-4953), and perhaps a comment from James Gosling at his closing keynote!

Keep in mind that the JavaOne Pavilion access is FREE. Students can get access to all JavaOne events FREE. 

*** The event at the Sun campus in Burlington, MA is open to emplyees only.