Wow this has gotten a lot of attention, sorry I haven't responded yet (school has been busy and my teams still needs to finish our FTC robot).
I'll reply to you guys from oldest post to newest.
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This coming year you are NOT restricted to using the classmate but any laptop you prefer subject to restrictions.
It will be addressed in the game manual. Please see 'Bill's Blog' for more information.
Ed
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Nice, I will go take a look at the Blog after this and check the game manual(after kickoff). I am glad that we don't need to use just the classmate, I have learned that redundant equipment at competitions is very useful.
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If you haven't found this already, FIRST's control system page is a good place to learn about the sort of thing you're researching (in general).
usfirst.org/frccontrolsystem
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Thank you for that resource, it had a TON of information on it.
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The classmate will be your best friend. It does have the DS software on it, which is extremely useful, but our team found it much more practical for LabView (or whatever language you use). We always get caught on a lack of laptops for competition, so the classmate was what we used this year. I used it more than my computer!
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You mean that my eee pc will no longer be my best friend *sniff*. But seriously I love netbooks (for the most part) the keyboards are efficient for typing quickly.
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Really? That sounds uncomfortable.
I guess the fact that you didn't have to type as much (due to using LabView) helped. If I had to do Java or C++ on that keyboard, I'd go insane.
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Typing isn't too bad if you get used to it by necessity, for example taking notes in class and programming during frees. I am however a bit concerned about my health what with Carpal Tunnel symptoms and all.
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No, it's painful with LabVIEW too. For your eyes. That screen is not very big, and it will work for coding, but not if you use just the Classmate. Remember, LabVIEW is graphical programming. And there's no way to zoom (for a reason). I highly recommend you get some other programming laptop with a screen that's of decent size. It doesn't have to be a big 'ol powerhouse machine of a beast, just a laptop that's decent enough.
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I use text based languages but what we actually do (or have been doing for FTC) is hooking up whatever laptop we are using to a projector so a) we have a bigger screen and b) our mentors can watch my code and help out the builders at the same time
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I might faint....
A new forum member
- Searched before posting
- Gave the thread a short, accurate, useful title
- Introduced himself and supplied context for his question
- Used punctuation
- Spelled well
- Used complete and grammatically correct sentences
- Clearly identified the information he hoped to learn
I wonder if I can get him to date my daughter?
Well done linuxboy,
Blake
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Thank you for the kudos, I appreciate it, it is always nice to feel this welcome on my first thread (which was also my first post) on a forum. I read the rules and everything (crazy right?). One of the reasons I made sure to do my post well is one of my mentors Jacob Komar (whytheheckme) expressed how useful the forum is if you use it right, so props to him. Sorry, but seeing as you live in Virginia and I live in Rhode Island I probably won't be meeting you daughter anytime soon.
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FYI - I just wrote a blog post about the entire driver station, classmate included. It's the ABC's of FIRST and today's letter is D (driver station).
I may be late on this, but thought I'd throw it out anyway.
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Thank You! I am trying to get as much info as I can about FRC (just finished 2010's whole WPIlib manual) so extra info is always helpful!
If I didn't reply directly to your post it probably is because it is mainly about LabVIEW which I don't use and intend to use very little, therefore I don't have any relevant thoughts.
Oliver