Motor Shield for Arduino - 6 motors

I am trying to modify your Demo DC Motor code to drive a Bogie Runt RoverTM (a 6 wheeled DC motor platform) with an ultrasonic sensor in an obstacle avoidance mode , running your DEMO example code, un-modified each motor will function as the code indicates, but it appears to power off my arduino uno when activating/polling the RC inputs. I commented those steps out to continue or to have code loop back through sequence.
I next commented out the code that would sequence each motor individually; my thoughts were that the remaining code would turn all motors ON at the same time but what occurs is each motor does start, but start one at a time, there appears to be a delay.
I have the ODD motors (m1,m3,m5) attached to the three motors on the left side and the EVEN motors (m2,m4,m6) on the right side.
I am trying to create code blocks for : FORWARD, LEFT, RIGHT, REVERSE, PIVOT_LEFT, PIVOT_RIGHT.
I don't need current sensing at this point.
I need code example to move FORWARD and REVERSE
Can you help ? thanks