Good Code

Good code is essential for programming.  Keeping things clean and tidy isn't just for fun, it will help you figure out what you can do to improve or fix your code when things go wrong.

www.readwriteweb.com/hack/2011/09/the-art-of-good-code-design.php

Copyright - "be aware" and "how to"

A something to be aware of as you start to get your project together:  a good deal of the example code and libraries you'll be using are distributed under some type of copyright.  Take the time to find out what kind it is, and what the restrictions are.  Most of them will be a Creative Commons license, most of which allow you to use, alter, and distribute the work under the same or similar licence as long as you give credit to its creator (as well as anyone who has contributed/changed their work).

If a license is too restrictive, you may want to investigate writing your own libraries or finding different ones if that is above your knowledge of the subject.

If you would like to copyright your own work, take a look here: http://creativecommons.org/choose/  You can pick from a variety of different licensing types and it is free.  If you are able, it would be great if you could donate a couple dollars to them for their services as copyrighting IP is an usually an extremely expensive process, and this organization is a blessing.

Resources

This site, although a blog technically, is filled with the resources you'll need for the design competition.  It is by no means complete or perfect, but it will serve to answer a good deal of your questions and get you started.

The workshop tutorials will be posted here as well.