FRC Driver Station on another machine

[arthurlockman]

Hey Everyone,

I have a question for the community. I've seen this done at a number of competitions, so I know it is possible. My question is, how do I go about getting the Driver station and Dashboard up and running on a machine other than the classmate?

Now, I have the dashboard installed on my Win7 machine, and it runs just fine on our local network. I can control the robot and everything just fine. But, when I go and hook it up to the FMS, the FMS will not connect to the driver station instance on my laptop.

What do I have to do to make it so it can connect? I'm running Win7 in Parallels Desktop on my mac, with bridged internet to the ethernet port. Technically it should work fine, but the FMS just won't connect. Any ideas?

Thanks in advance!
-Arthur Lockman

[Mark McLeod]

Do you have the required user account "Driver" ?

[arthurlockman]

I do not, no. Do I need to create an account called 'driver' on my machine in order for it to work?

[Mark McLeod]

Yes. (capital D in Driver)
FMS checks the user account when connecting.
The account in use is displayed by the Driver Station application for the purpose of verifying that "Driver" is being used.

[Tommy F.]

Even though you may have the problem solved with the above replies,
Here's the .pdf file on the FIRST site explaining how to install the 2011 driver station on a non-classmate PC: http://usfirst.org/uploadedFiles/Robotics_Programs/FRC/Game_and_Season__Info/2011_Assets/Kit_of_Parts/Installing%20the%202011%20Driver%20Station%20on%20 a%20non-Classmate%20PC_Rev0.pdf

[arthurlockman]

Aha. thanks, guys. Let's hope this works at the next competition!

-Arthur

[RedLeader342]

is there any way to get it on a macbook?

[Mark McLeod]

It works in Boot Camp.
This thread is talking about the setup for last season though, so the posts don't all apply to 2012.

[DominickC]

I was forced to scramble to make my personal Mac compatible to run our robot on Thursday at WPI after my main coding machine bit the dust.

I'm running x64 Win7 on Parallels. I've set the settings to Ethernet (Bridged), configured my ***Mac*** Ethernet IP to 10.te.am.66 (end number greater than 20, lower than 200 to be safe), and subnet to 255.0.0.0. Within Parallels, I installed LabVIEW, updates, and the Driver's Station. I plopped down a custom dashboard and code, set the IP of the Virtual Win7 to 10.te.am.5, subnet of 255.0.0.0 and went on my merry way.

Note that no updates or drivers were needed for me to accomplish this.

EDIT: Contrary to popular belief, you do not *need* a user account named Driver. I haven't ever used one, nor has anyone told me I need one for this year's competition. It's also a good thing to note that the Kinect will not work on a Virtual Machine.