FRC Blogged - Awards and 2014 Operating System Support

[Hallry]

Posted on the FRC Blog, 11/12/13: http://www.usfirst.org/roboticsprograms/frc/Awards-and-2014-Operating-System-Support

Awards and 2014 Operating System Support

**Blog Date: **Tuesday, November 12, 2013 - 12:25

**Chairman’s Award, FIRST Dean’s List Award, Woodie Flowers Award and Entrepreneurship Award Submissions open Thursday, 11/14/13 at 12 pm (noon) ET

The Chairman’s Award, the Woodie Flowers Award, and the Entrepreneurship Award must be submitted via STIMS. The Main or Alternate contact for your team must assign at least one (1) and up to four (4) student award submitters in FRC TIMS.

The *FIRST *Dean’s List Award must be submitted by the team’s main or alternate contact through TIMS.

**FIRST Future Innovator Award sponsored by the Abbott Fund: opens on Thursday, 11/14/13 at 12 pm (noon) ET via: https://www.allthingspatent.com/maxidv4/ffia/.

New this year! The winner of the *FIRST *Future Innovator Award gets to meet personally with Dean!

To read more about FFIA criteria and what 2013 winner, Parker Owen, had to say about his experience go to http://www.usfirst.org/roboticsprograms/frc/future-innovator-award.

2014 Safety Animation Contest judged by our Safety Alliance Partner, Underwriter’s Laboratories, Inc. (UL): opened on Thursday, 10/10/13 at 12pm (noon) ET and will close Thursday, 12/12/13 at 12pm (noon) ET.

Submission can be made via STMS. Contest details are available at http://www.usfirst.org/roboticsprograms/frc/safety-video-and-manual.

2014 Operating System Support

The Control System software we’re releasing for the 2014 season has been tested and will be officially supported on Windows 7 and Windows 8. The software has not been certified to work on Windows XP. This doesn’t mean it won’t work, just that we can’t guarantee it, and we won’t be able to provide anything beyond cursory support if you decide to use it.

I’ll blog again soon.

Frank

[Alan_Anderson]

@FRC Blog

The software has not been certified to work on Windows XP. This doesn’t mean it won’t work, just that we can’t guarantee it, and we won’t be able to provide anything beyond cursory support if you decide to use it.

It would be nice if teams were given the opportunity to upgrade their existing programming computer OS to Windows 7. I wonder if Microsoft would consider making licenses available to FRC teams.

[FrankJ]

The 2014 Beta DS does not currently run on XP. It is on the bug list to get fixed though.

Microsoft has said the end of support for XP is April 2014.

[dcarr]

@Alan Anderson

It would be nice if teams were given the opportunity to upgrade their existing programming computer OS to Windows 7. I wonder if Microsoft would consider making licenses available to FRC teams.

Weren’t teams provided with a Windows 7 image to upgrade the original Classmates? I think this was in 2011 or 2012.

[bachster]

@Alan Anderson

It would be nice if teams were given the opportunity to upgrade their existing programming computer OS to Windows 7. I wonder if Microsoft would consider making licenses available to FRC teams.

Techsoup.org administers software donations to 501c3 organizations. There’s a little bit of work to get registered, but eligible organizations can get all sorts of software (including Windows licenses) for a fraction of the cost - a Windows upgrade is $12. The Microsoft volume licensing is a bit painful to navigate, but we found it to be worth it for the money saved.

[Alan_Anderson]

@dcarr

Weren’t teams provided with a Windows 7 image to upgrade the original Classmates?

I wouldn’t use a Classmate to do programming unless there were absolutely no other option. The screen is too small for LabVIEW. I find that the keyboard is too small for anything else.