ANY-maze Help > The ANY-maze reference > The Protocol page > The elements of a protocol > Inputs and outputs > Sensors > Setting up a sensor > Specifying the sensor value reported in results

Specifying the sensor value reported in results

In brief

The options described here won't be available if ANY of the sensor's ports can ONLY be read by pressing a key on the sensor.

Use the options on the sensor's settings page to choose the value that should be reported for the sensor in the test results. The options are essentially the absolute value of the sensor, or the change in the sensor's value during the test.

Details

There are three options for the value which a sensor should report in the test results. They are:

The first option is the most commonly used. For example, if you wish to record the temperature of the water in a water-maze, then you would use this option. So the results would report the actual temperature read by the sensor.

The other options are both similar, and report the change in the sensor's value during the test. Which you use will depend on what the sensor is actually sensing. For example, if you are using a weight sensor to determine the weight of faeces excreted by an animal during the test, then you would specify that the sensor's value should be the increase during the test, relative to the start value. Thus the sensor might be reading 50g at the start of the test (being the weight of the receptacle that will hold the faeces) and 58g at the end of the test - so the sensor's result would be 8g.

On the other hand, if you wish to record the weight of food consumed by the animal during a test, then you would specify that the sensor's value is the decrease during the test, relative to the start value. In this case, the weight of food might be 100g at the start of the test and 94g at the end, so the result (how much food the animal ate) would be 6g.

Note that for either of the 'difference' values to be reported, you must have either specified that the sensor is to be read continuously throughout the test or that it should be read at the end of a test when the sensor's key is pressed. If neither of these options is specified, then the sensor will simply not report any results at all.

See also:

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ANY-maze help topic T0175