Clueless Newbie

I decided to purchase the Hexy as a gift/project for my kids. While the notes on getting started are OK, they leave out a number of key details. My intent is to help them get the unit up and running fairly quickly, and try and avoid an extended time validating that they constructed the unit quickly. Since they haven’t built it yet, most of my questions below are designed to ensure that the setup and programming environments are setup correctly.
I was able to load the Arduino software, connect the controller and seemingly upload the latest driver software. A few questions:
• How can I verify that the driver was successfully loaded? Is there any code I can execute in the Arduino IDE that will return a version of the driver loaded?
• Is the driver permanently loaded to the controller, or does it need to be re-loaded for each session
I was able to successfully install and load the Python and PySerial software. A couple of questions:
• In looking at the examples on the blog and other sites, there is much reference to setting the BAUD rate correctly. However, in the Arduino console on my Windows 7 PC, it only shows COM8 as the port. There seems to be no setting for BAUD rate. What value should I use?
• Once I have the correct settings, is there a sample program that can be run against the controller to ensure that python is communicating with the board properly?

Thanks in advance for any help