[BB] Bill's Blog 11-22-11

[Taylor]

Teams will not be restricted to using the Classmate as their Driver Station as long as certain criteria are met and all relevant rules are followed. More details to follow in the 2012 Game Manual when it is released.

It's statements like this that tend to grind my gears. What would be the harm in releasing the requirements for a driver station computer? I'm sure lots of teams would gladly purchase a netbook or the like on Black Friday for a bargain price rather than have to wait until after Jan 7th and pay MSRP + 40%.
We were told to buy pool noodles back in July or August, when they were readily accessible to teams and even on clearance; I was hoping this trend of releasing pertinent information without revealing too much would continue.

[thefro526]

Originally Posted by Taylor

It's statements like this that tend to grind my gears. What would be the harm in releasing the requirements for a driver station computer? I'm sure lots of teams would gladly purchase a netbook or the like on Black Friday for a bargain price rather than have to wait until after Jan 7th and pay MSRP + 40%.

I'm with Taylor.

I can't see any single team gaining a huge advantage by knowing what the specs on allowable PC's are. Black Friday aside, it'd be nice to have 6-7 weeks to wait for a good deal to pop up on an appropriate computer vs. scrambling to buy one the day of kick off or week one of Build. (depends on when you set up the control system initially, I guess)

[Jared Russell]

Originally Posted by Taylor

It's statements like this that tend to grind my gears. What would be the harm in releasing the requirements for a driver station computer? I'm sure lots of teams would gladly purchase a netbook or the like on Black Friday for a bargain price rather than have to wait until after Jan 7th and pay MSRP + 40%.
We were told to buy pool noodles back in July or August, when they were readily accessible to teams and even on clearance; I was hoping this trend of releasing pertinent information without revealing too much would continue.

I am not sure what the requirements will ultimately be, but I will say that as of now, the Kinect SDK only functions properly on Windows 7. So that is likely to be one of them (at least if you want to use the Kinect).