Using a MacBook Air as a Driver Station

[mbshark]

Could we use a Macbook Air (bootcamp-win10) to be our driver station? Does anyone have previous experience with this? The air does not have an ethernet port so we would have to use a dongle and we are unsure if it will connect properly/stay connected to the FMS.

[Bryan Herbst]

There are no rules or technical limitations preventing you from doing so.

I haven't seen a MacBook Air specifically in the past, but I have seen a few teams use MacBooks before. Before you come to a competition, test out the Ethernet connection you intend to use by connecting directly to the robot to ensure that your drivers are working properly. At competitions be sure to disable both the Bluetooth adapter and the wireless adapter in the network settings.

Keep in mind that a MacBook Air is an expensive device and driver stations are relatively highly susceptible to getting damaged.

[Jon Stratis]

I have heard of issues using USB-ethernet dongles in the past, so I would be a little wary about it. If you go this route, bring a backup computer with a built in ethernet port just in case... then get out on the field for as many practice matches as you can to make sure it works!

[Sperkowsky]

A Macbook Air would make a pretty good driver station computer. Its pretty tough, reliable, and light. Just make sure it has an SSD in it. Having everyone wait for your computer to boot up to start a match is not fun.

[rponmalai]

Code Orange ran a Macbook Air as our driver laptop for two years. From that time we learned a few things:
Things we liked :

• The Air is very light and easy to transport. As the person on the drive team who had to carry the operator console, it was greatly appreciated.
• The battery is fantastic. Even after having it for almost three years, the battery will still last all day.

Things to watch out for:

• We were running Windows 7 and had some issues with the drivers for the thunderbolt to ethernet adapter. IIRC the thunderbolt drivers would occasionally blue screen the computer. This forced use to use a usb to ethernet adapter which resulted in us needing a usb hub as well. This issue may be different in Windows 10 so make sure to test it rigorously.
  
• USB Hubs: If you are going to use more than one controller and a usb to ethernet adapter you are probably going to need a USB hub. If you use a USB hub you will want to stop Windows from shutting down the device. You can do this by going into device manager and changing the power management settings of your usb hub like this(that setting should be unchecked).