kculm,
Working with the Arduino and electronics gets pretty frustrating for anyone at times. Patience is the key and 3 months is really not alot of time when you are coming in with little electronics and programming knowledge and experience.
I was going to suggest that you take a step back. The code you are using for your traverse routine was developed by someone else and it is fairly advanced for a beginner. I suggest "shelving" that part of the code and come back to it down the road when you can understand it better. Refocus your effort on developing your own code to control the LEDs in a simpler fashion, such as blinking and pulsing the leds.
I agree with fungus that its essential to spend some time studying general programming in any language. C or C++ is probably your best bet to learn the Ardiuno...