Driver Station 2010 - Netbook?

[Kingofl337]

I think there are a few solutions:

1. FIRST should just fix the current DS and protect the inputs and the ethernet ports. Based on the current design, it would cost a little more but make the DS very robust. Also, give us a DB-25 instead of PWM pins for I/O

2. Make a very robust set DS's that will travel with the field, teams will just connect thier gamepads and a DB-25 cable for I/O to the DS and play. Teams would use a virtual driver station with a breakout board for testing at home.

3. Teams use a Netbook running a fixed Linux/XP embedded image to run their robot on and off the field. Use a USB breakout board for I/O. The image would need to be fixed as it would prevent crashing caused by malware / viruses.

edit
4. First could give a bootable thumb drive out and that could have a fixed image on it and teams could start their laptops up with that. First could list tested laptops and teams could choose to purchase a discounted laptop that is tested to work with the fixed image. I'm sure FIRST could swing a group buy for 1500+ teams.

[Bryan Herbst]

With our DS currently out of the picture, I and the other programmer briefly discussed using a netbook instead of the DS (using the VDS, of course).

The advantages are that we would have a more reliable DS, we would actually have a DS, and we could quite likely use the dashboard with it so that we could get better feedback and more of the feedback we want.

I still want a DS for competition bots, but this idea is plausible for promobots or summer projects.