Question Stop Timer at a Random Time

[glowtus]

I'm working on a reaction time program where I'll be testing... well, reaction time of a user. For this program I'll need a timer to stop at a random time interval, say somewhere between 3 and 10 seconds. Anyone know of a technique to do this. I've done some research and it seems there are a bunch of different ways of generating a random number just not sure how to assign that number to a timer. Any advice would be much appreciated, thanks!

 

[Solitaire]

Here's a simple solution, without using a timer:

Private Sub Button1_Click(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles Button1.Click
Dim randnum As New Random
Dim delay As Integer
delay = randnum.Next(2000, 10000)
Threading.Thread.Sleep(delay)
MessageBox.Show("STOP", delay.ToString)
End Sub

 

[jmcilhinney]

Here's a simple solution, without using a timer:

Private Sub Button1_Click(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles Button1.Click
Dim randnum As New Random
Dim delay As Integer
delay = randnum.Next(2000, 10000)
Threading.Thread.Sleep(delay)
MessageBox.Show("STOP", delay.ToString)
End Sub

The simple things in life are often the worst. Calling Thread.Sleep on the UI thread is pretty much never a good idea.

glowtus, 99 times out of 100 you should be using Random.Next to generate a random number. That part of Solitaire's code is good. You should be creating one and only one Random object though, so do so using a member variable, not local. You would then use your number as the Interval for a Timer. Call Start and it will raise its Tick event in that many milliseconds, at which point you call Stop.

 

[glowtus]

The simple things in life are often the worst. Calling Thread.Sleep on the UI thread is pretty much never a good idea.

glowtus, 99 times out of 100 you should be using Random.Next to generate a random number. That part of Solitaire's code is good. You should be creating one and only one Random object though, so do so using a member variable, not local. You would then use your number as the Interval for a Timer. Call Start and it will raise its Tick event in that many milliseconds, at which point you call Stop.

Alright, let me see what I can do tomorrow when I get back to the office. I'll post my code if I get lost (haven't used VB in about 8 years). Thanks for the help!

 

[glowtus]

So if I had something like this:

Dim delay As Integer
Dim randnum As New Random
delay = randnum.Next(3, 10)
Timer1.Enabled = True
Timer1.Start()

How would I assign the value of the delay variable to the timer.stop?

Forgive me, like I said, I have not used this program in many years.

 

[JohnH]

How would I assign the value of the delay variable to the timer.stop?

You would then use your number as the Interval for a Timer

Interval Property

 

[glowtus]

I think I may have figured out a different (maybe easier?) solution.

In the Timer_Tick Sub, I place a counter, so I'm saying if counter = randnum then blah blah blah. That seems to be working.