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Disc Golf Access VBA Database

 

In the summer of 2003, just for fun, I built a personal database to keep track of my disc golf scores and my collection of frisbees (I own over fifty). If you've never heard of disc golf I can explain it briefly. Below you can see the table structure of my disc golf database. If you understand database design, notice that everything is properly normalized. If you are using Internet Explorer, you can hover over the image to view tooltips explaining the purpose of each table.

 

Shows relatationships of tables and fields. Everything is properly normalized. Table containing the name of the disc, the manufacturer, and the disc specs (what it's supposed to do). Table containing the various possible colors of a disc, red, green, glow, clear etc. Table for the company. To be properly normalized, this table needed to be split out, even though there's only three possibilities: Innova, Discraft, or Lighting. Table containing my individual discs, including date of purchase, play status, plastic type etc. This table contains one entry for every disc played in a game, and a boolean value for whether or not I was happy with it on that particular experience. If I had a particularly good shot or bad shot, the stats go in this table. This is the center of the database where the game stats are recorded. This is a table of game scores for the various people I may play with. This of course, is the table of courses. Table of the various people I play with on occassion.

 

The next image is of the main page of the interface system, the Add New Game form with one of the popup forms displayed below that. Again, you can hover over portions of the image to view tooltips describing the functions of the various sections. Once you understand how I intended to use the database, you'll see that it would have been a very efficient interface system...

 

Add new game form. Main form in my disc golf database.

Here you enter each disc you played with, one by one or add one with the "add" button. Here you enter a description of the game you played.; just something to remind you about the game. Here you enter your individual shots (only the incredible or absolutely horrible ones), one by one. As you enter new discs, players, and shots to your game, the numbers in this message update. This is where the basic game information is entered. View the Add New Course dialog below.

Add New Course popup window.

 

...however, I wasn't able to finish the database by the new school year. It turned out to be a bigger project than I had expected. However, for three months work while still learning VBA and reading a 900 page programming manual cover to cover, I feel I made good progress, probably more than halfway to completion of the total project. I learned a great deal about programming and came to realize how fun it can be.

The data entry systems are complete, save for a couple minor details. What remains is the data retrieval systems. Unfortunately I won't finish this database, as I've found too many other programming and web development interests, but I feel it can still be an example of my ability for both programming and interface design. If you would like to download the database and explore it, or view the code, you will need MS Access installed on your computer. Start with the "frmAddGame" form.