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Thank you! <3 On shooting: exactly that, it is so foreign to them, I doubt they could grasp the concept, but they can understand the loop of: pull lever -> audiovisual feedback of shooting with monster disappearing -> reward. Biting or scratching a surface as a form of attack may work better, but the audiovisual + reward response should help them to understand at what visual signals to pull the lever to make it go boom.
Thank you, we really appreciate it! <3
This is far from primarily visual, but I do understand your point. I could not take videos unfortunately. I mentioned it in other places, but this project took so long, I just wanted to put it out there and get some feedback. I'm glad that people are this receptive to it, and I hope someone would take the project over!
When rats gaming championships become a thing, I will have the top team for sure! Seriously though, this project took way too much time. We built 2 versions of the setup, lots of hardware, software building, testing. I hope a behavioral lab or hardware enthusiasts would take it over and scale it. I did learn a lot in the process and would gladly support anyone who would continue it. In fact, I have a setup now laying around in my living room up for the taking :D
Lol you are correct! At least training them becomes smoother the faster you administer reward. Learning happens at different timescales in the brain, and immediate feedback (about <300 ms) yields the most reliable neural updates.
Gonna be honest here, I've worked on this for so long, so many iterations, lots of versions for each 3D part, software and all, at this point I just wanted to publish everything I had and do it fast. And you are totally right, publishing without parametric source files was a mistake, I'll upload everything I have shortly, prices included. Note: mice require smaller setups and that just leads to the redesign of most parts - smaller ball, ball driver, lever with weaker springs... training cats prompts for a larger ball, same issue. VR setups for cats though would be super cool!
On this setup my rats were only habituated, they did not end up playing Doom. Even habituation seamed super slow, they were a year old when I started it. On the previous setup though, when they learnt to run on the ball and how that influences their reward, they got hooked. I believe they enjoy not just the reward, they get a sense of how their actions influence the game and they like that. They would run on the ball so much at some point they wouldn't even bother drinking all the juice and it was just dripping on the setup.
No idea what they would best like to play. It needs to be a first person game though, that's what they are able to understand how to handle, it's more natural to them.
Thank you for taking the time to give feedback! I also hope pet VRs become a thing and people can connect with their pets virtually too!
Giving them slightly acidic water off-rig and normal water while playing is another option - not the best either. I opted for sugar in the end, because they didn't spend much time on the setup; but this should be reconsidered if they on-rig for hours daily.
yeah good point! we actually have air puffs for that. we extracted from DOOM when a wall is hit in-game. when that happens, the corresponding side puff activates.
Good news: Here's a cute video of Todd being habituated to the setup: https://x.com/yolorun_capital/status/1999598643339227564
Bad news: no video of them playing on this setup, just on the previous version. We iterated on v2 too long, our pet rats grew old and couldn't be trained. We open-sourced the hardware and software so others can build upon it. You can TLDR the whole thing in this thread: https://x.com/yolorun_capital/status/1996632980903620886?s=2...
...Also, here's my personal X, dm me if you have any questions, or would want to build it for a lab or for yourself: https://x.com/viktor_thoth