Driver Station Laptop

[bkahl]

A few recommendations for ALL Drive station laptops after spending a few seasons in High School behind the glass.

1) SSD. Reasons stated above.

2) Put Drivers Station and any dashboard you need in Startup. A reboot with an SSD and these files booting right away will allow connection and reconnection to a robot MUCH faster.

3) Touchscreen. While this may be a stretch for some- it can be really simple for enabling and disabling for ANYONE (not everyone knows hotkeys) and also makes log viewing really quick and easy.

4) NOTHING unnecessary on the laptop. There's no reason to have browsers or anything if you never connect it to the internet. (Never connect a DS to the internet......)

5) Webcam- while it's likely to never come back... You don't want to be the only one unable to do a 'Cheesy Vision'-esque program for auton if it does and your USBs may be getting full.

6) at least 3/4 USB ports. Allows up to 3 joysticks/controllers to be connected directly to the laptop while maintaining quick tethering via USB.

7) Ethernet Port- obvious

8) use it ONLY as a drivers station- kind of ties in with 4, but keeping the drivers station pristine will allow for peak performance.

9)Good Trackpad- a good trackpad will make quick troubleshooting easier and will make every FTA or CSA that has to help you much happier.

All of these are nice but the most neccessary ones to me are 1,2,4,6,7


At the end of the day, I don't think RAM or Processing power is as important as some of these and these can all(besides maybe touchscreen) definitely be found in a low budget, refurbed laptop.

Also- don't be afraid to buy a laptop for upgrade. I'm sure there's a student on most teams who can upgrade RAM a bit or throw an SSD in a laptop.