Introduction to WPILIB

This guide will teach you how to install WPILIB VS code and create your first WPILib Project.

WPILib

What is WPILib?

WPiLib is code library developed by Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) built for the FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC). This library contains helpful classes starting from direct interaction with motors, pneumatics, LEDs all the way to advanced path planning. Officially supported languages are Java and C/C++. (Read More)

WPILib is the basis of FRC Programming. All other programs and libraries will built around WPILib. Teams start off with WPILib and build upon this central library when they become more advanced.

WPILib usually has yearly releases parallel to yearly FRC game releases where the library of code is updated to fit new hardware and new features are added.

How to Install WPILib?

Please follow this guide to install WPILib.

Project Creation

• Hit ctrl + p (cmd + shift + p on mac) to open up the command palette
• Type Create a new project and hit enter

right click on image and click open image in new tab to view a bigger version of what to fill in

• Fill out the Project Creator so it looks something like above.
  • Chose which ever folder you want your project to be made in
  • The project name should indicate what year it is, the project should also be in pascal case. (e.g. YEAR-SomeName)
  • Type 3647 for the team number. You will not be able to deploy code to the robot if your have the wrong team number.
• Click Generate Project. After this, a terminal should pop up at the bottom of your screen.

Note

YEAR should be the current year (e.g. 2024-SomeName).

In about 35 seconds, your terminal sound read BUILD SUCCESSFUL

File Structure Adjustment

Current Default File Structure

java
└── frc
    └── robot
        ├── commands
        │   └── ExampleCommand.java
        ├── Constants.java
        ├── Main.java
        ├── RobotContainer.java
        ├── Robot.java
        └── subsystems
            └── ExampleSubsystem.java

Note: all folder names should be lower cased

• Go into the java folder of your project through vscode or through file explorer
• Inside of the java folder, create a folder called team 3647
• Inside of the team3647 folder you just made, create a folder called frcYEAR (or whatever year it is) and lib
• Inside of frcYEAR, add
  • autonomous
  • commands
  • inputs
  • robot
  • subsystems
• Move Main.java, Robot.java, and RobotContainer.java into team3647/frcYEAR/robot
• Delete the frc folder
• remove all import statements from RobotContainer.java
• return null in getAutonomousCommand() in RobotContainer.java

Make appropriate edits to the package statements at the top of these files

Final Adjusted File Structure

java
└── team3647
    ├── frcYEAR
    │   ├── autonomous
    │   ├── commands
    │   │   └── ExampleCommand.java
    │   ├── constants
    │   │   └── Constants.java
    │   ├── robot
    │   │   ├── Main.java
    │   │   ├── RobotContainer.java
    │   │   └── Robot.java
    │   └── subsystems
    │       └── ExampleSubsystem.java
    └── lib

Modify build.gradle

modify this line on build.gradle from:

def ROBOT_MAIN_CLASS = 'frc.robot.Main'

to

def ROBOT_MAIN_CLASS = 'team3647.frcYEAR.robot.Main'

This is because the path to your Main.java file has changed after you adjust your file structure according to the instructions above.

Build Code

• Hit ctrl + p (cmd + shift + p on mac) to open up the command palette
• Type build and press enter for WPILib: Build Robot Code
• If all has been done correctly, the terminal should say BUILD SUCCESSFUL in about 30 seconds

Authors

• Team 3647, Edward Sun