Haha, if you can program in BASIC, you have more programming knowledge than me! I'm lucky I can string together a bit of outmoded HTML.
Just focus on your spriting skills for now -- you show great promise. I suppose that if there's a "test" the CE team could use to recruit new spriters, it should simply be this:
Create a Chrono Trigger-style sprite of 12 colors that fits into four tiles (four 16x16 pixel squares). The tiles can be arranged in any order. That's literally it. If it meets those specs, it can be inserted as a player character.