All the tutorial wants you to do is select the object that you just auto mapped, and assign a blinn, or lambert to it. once that is done go into the color input for that blinn or lambet and click the box next to the feild, when the new menu comes up select checker from the list ( you can make the two colors of the checker what ever you like) then you will see the checker pattern on the peice of your model that you selected, and then you can move on and add that same material to all of the other peices once they are mapped.