Using UPenn’s Flywheel Instance

Data collected at UPenn research scanners is anonymized and uploaded to Flywheel. You need a PennKey to log in to Flywheel and need to be added to projects by your lab’s Flywheel administrator. In addition to storing data, Flywheel can also process your data with its “gears”. You will interact with Flywheel either through your web browser or using the Flywheel Standard Development Kit (SDK) from Python.

Connecting with a browser

In any browser (preferably Google Chrome), you can access Flywheel by visiting upenn.flywheel.io.

Installing the Flywheel SDK

This assumes that you’ve already installed miniconda and are using a python environment you have administrative rights to (ie you’ve run conda activate). To check that you’re using the correct environment run

$ which pip
/Users/my_account/miniconda3/envs/my_env/bin/pip

and see that pip is being used from within your conda environment. Now you can install the SDK using

$ pip install flywheel-sdk

Connecting with the SDK

The flywheel CLI allows you to communicate with Flywheel’s database. Follow their instructions here. Once installed and logged in, you should see your username when you do:

$ fw status
$ You are currently logged in as Tinashe Tapera to https://upenn.flywheel.io

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