Background

• Course: CLPS1195: Life Under Water in the Anthropocene

• Instructor: Prof. Ruth Colwill

• Zantiks:

  • A processing unit to collect animal data, tracking movement over time.

  • Supplies stimuli within the machine and measures the animal response.

  • Outputs a CSV file with movement data of all animals, paired with timestamps and conditions.

Goals & Initial Expectations

• Main Goal: Improve the speed at which data sets are analyzed.

• Initial Expectations:

  • Uncertainty about direct application by students.

  • Two project options were initially considered.

My Project (Simplified)

• Colab Notebook:

  • Students input parameters...

  • ...and receive generated graphs!

Project Structure/Process & Obstacles

• Data Processing:

  • Data not straightforwardly formatted.

  • First three rows are not actual data.

  • Presence of "random" empty columns.

  • Utilized Regex to exclude unused/empty collection cells.

• Plotting Graphs:

  • Initial use of Matplotlib, which lacked student interaction and easy report insertion.

  • Switched to Plotly for better interaction and integration.

• Cleaning for Student Use:

  • Simplified gdown usage.

  • Typed consistent instructions.

  • Reformatted for clarity.

Skills Used

• Pandas

• Plotly

Accounting for the Students

• Considerations:

  • Diverse student backgrounds.

  • Familiarity with Python code, Google Colab, and Google Drive.

• Approach:

  • Commented code for experienced students or those curious about Python.

  • Written instructions for beginners.

  • Extensive code and results testing.

Next Steps & Future Directions

• Account for multiple "phases" of the experiment in plotting.

• Update script for bright/dark stimuli visualization.

• Add functionality to visualize excluded cells.