Never mind. I'm also a newbie with RobotC, installed the trial a week ago and asking couple of questions.
I have bougth gyroscopic and accelerometer sensors directly from hitechnic and made some measurents with them. They seem to be working fine, I need just a few more days to get familiar with them.
If you do not know much about on accelerometers you can find loads of information on them on the internet (use "inertial sensor" as search key), e.g.
http://www.eecs.berkeley.edu/~boser/pub ... slides.pdf
There is a tiny (microgramm-size) mass within the sensor, "hanging" on (piezoelectric) springs. When sensor housing is moved the mass follows it with a little delay. The change in the masses position results in changed capacity and measured as
acceleration.
Be careful: mechanical shocks -- like dropping sensor the onto a hard surface -- might break the micromechanical circuit within the sensor while a similar drop of a light sensor will not yet harm the electronics. I usually work with these sensors over a carpet, you know, just in case.