Replacement Classmate

[peoples]

We had a similar issue at the Waterford District event. Our DS Laptop (Dell) USB ports came disconnected/shorted internally and the device manager either shut down the usb ports or put them into sleep mode to prevent other damage to the computer. Unfortunately we didn't find the problem until only 3 Q matches remained. We were able to borrow a classmate from the field for the 3 matches. We were picked for an alliance and ended up third in the event. (Thanks 247 da Bears and 2834 Bionic Barons for taking a chance on us, sorry about the upset on the bridge).

[Mr. Lim]

We replaced our E09 Classmate this year with this netbook:

http://www.toshiba.ca/web/product.gr...=13240#spectop

It's a Canadian model, but I'm sure you can find a US equivalent locally.

We also upgraded it to 2GB of RAM.

So far so good!

[pyroslev]

Virginia regional saw a lot of teams still using the classmates as a DS.

Two issues in addition to yours cristina with them that I and others noted:

1.) The battery in it's second year is about gone. Hard/near impossible to get a new one and recelling is hard to do. (Took about three hours for our guy to get into it and strip it down.) Hibernating/Sleeping the laptop helps but more often then not does the trick if the battery still has life in it.

2.) The one team that had any success with the Kinect was using a classmate. They couldn't use it in their first match as they had their joysticks pretty much just slapped in and didn't wanna risk moving them around. Secondly, the classmate is tremendously underpowered to support the Kinect at real time speeds.

Other than those, not a bad little laptop.

[Chris Fultz]

The advantage of the Classmate option is that it is the FIRST KOP laptop and the FTA's and others at the event know about it and know the FIRST systems work with it. If you have problems at the drivers station, you may be able to get better assistance.

If you are using something else and have problems, it may be tougher to troubleshoot since the technical people there to support the field may not know the details of your laptop.

I don't think this is a huge concern, but a consideration.

[nick_champ_2]

Well this year our KOP Laptop was stolen. Our school district purchased approx 12 of the M&A Technology Companion touch laptops a few years ago and they didn't like them so we acquired those. The KOP install took well and everything worked fine.

Now we have a touch screen drivers station.

our model number of the laptop is MACMPC558005. which is un-avaliable now. but their new model looks like the one that rookie teams have.

their website for M&A Tech has a few laptops that quite possibly work for you if you want to go down that route.

http://www.shopmanda.com/c-4876-notebooks.aspx

[FrankJ]

We had more the the usual share of software & comm problems this year. (Thanks smart dash board) Our op station is a mid line Dell. Of all the questions & suggestions that were made, nobody, FTA's included suggested pulling the classmate out & trying it.

The classmate is fine for running the basic drive station. But for the replacement money you can buy much better solution. It is cookbook simple to add the required software.

The spirit of Gracious Professionalism is evident with the FTAs, NI people, & Java teams that spent a lot of time helping us at Peachtree & Palmetto.

[Mk.32]

We tossed the Classmate this year and used an Student's gateway laptop [i5+4gb], didn't have a single issue and the video feed from the camera seemed to not lag at all on it compared to the Classmate where there was some lag noticeable.

You can get a decent netbook that will run circles around the classmate for about $300-$400 these days, or even a full sized laptop that will be even faster.

Yes you would have to configure these but it is usually the same amount of work as flashing the classmate and just installing the updates.