Welcome
Visual Reactive Programming with Bonsai
This training course will introduce you to the basic concepts of data acquisition and behavioural control using the Bonsai visual programming language.
Course Schedule
| Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Monday | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Seminar | Introduction to Bonsai | Reactive Operators | Higher Order Operators | BonVision | Wrap-up |
| Recap | Object Tracking | Data Synchronization | State Machines | ||
| Workshop | Acquisition and Tracking | Closed-loop experiments | Operant behavior | Visual environments | Final projects |
Day 1 - Introduction to Bonsai
- Introduction to Bonsai. What is visual reactive programming?
- How to measure almost anything with Bonsai (from quantities to bytes).
- How to control almost anything with Bonsai (from bytes to effects).
- Real-time tracking of colored objects, moving objects and contrasting objects.
- Measuring behavior using voltages and an Arduino.
Day 2 - Real-time closed-loop experiments
- Data synchronization and measuring closed-loop latency.
- Conditional effects. Triggering a stimulus based on video activity.
- Continuous feedback. Modulate stimulus intensity with speed or distance.
- Feedback stabilization. Record video centered around a moving object.
- Real-time markerless pose tracking using Bonsai + DeepLabCut and Bonsai + SLEAP.
Day 3 - Operant behavior tasks
- Creating dynamic observable sequences with higher-order operators.
- Modeling trial sequences: states, events, and side-effects.
- Driving state transitions with external inputs.
- Choice, timeouts and conditional logic. Building reaction time and Go/No-Go tasks.
- Best practices for composing complex workflows.
Day 4 - Interactive visual environments
- Creating and controlling visual environments with BonVision.
- Building closed-loop virtual reality experiments.
- Combining real-time and non real-time logic.
- Building variable trial structures.
- Logging stimulus and response outcomes.
Day 5 - Wrap-up
- How to extend Bonsai with scripting.
- Reproducible deployment and versioning of experiments.
- Interfacing Bonsai with Python and MATLAB.
- Bonsai hackathon and project presentations.
- Closing remarks.