Software for this project has been written in ROBOLAB, a reduced instruction-set version of National Instruments LabVIEW.  While NQC, a variant of 'C', is currently more popular in robotics projects, ROBOLAB has one distinct advantage:  You can design informally by playing with the components, in the same way that you can design mechanical structures by playing with a box full of parts.  I say this with the perspective of an Engineer with 40 years of formal processes...