Class 5 — Pilot Testing & Data Generation

Part I
Pilot everyone’s task in a rotation: you run your classmates’ tasks while they run yours, and you leave with real data from several participants.
Published

October 6, 2026

There’s no new Builder mechanic or Python concept today, and no class time for debugging. Your laptop becomes a station: you’ll set your task to about 90 trials and run it once to make sure it works, and the whole class will rotate around the room, so you run many of your classmates’ tasks as a participant (typing a four-digit code you make up, never your name) while many of them run yours. At the end you’ll check the CSVs your task collected, the same files you’ll read directly into R in Part II of this course, upload them to Canvas, and answer three short reflection questions there. Bring your laptop, charged, with your task on it. Class time is for piloting, not fixing, so make sure your task runs before you come; if it doesn’t, you’ll take part as a participant, then ask a classmate (ideally someone who also couldn’t collect data today) to run your task later this week, or run it yourself if you can’t find one, and upload that data and your answers by Monday, October 12.

Reading due: PsychoPy docs: Data outputs; Think Python ch. 8 (optional) · Due the night before (Mon 10/5, 11:59 PM): HW2

What you’ll be able to do

  1. Set up your own PsychoPy task for piloting (Run mode, the class trial-count standard) and confirm that it runs from start to finish.
  2. Run your own task for many real (peer) participants, and sit as a participant for many classmates’ tasks.
  3. Export and locate a complete CSV for each participant who ran your task, and briefly double-check each file (a complete run, the expected number of rows, the participant’s code in the file).
  4. Enter a participant code (a four-digit number you make up, never a name) in PsychoPy’s startup dialog, find the CSV PsychoPy writes, check that it is complete, and say where it goes next: Canvas today, an R project in Class 6.
  5. Identify what still needs fixing in your own task based on what today’s piloting revealed.
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