Assignments for Week 6

Agree with the email thing. I originally sent it so everyone would know there was posts in there but then it started a conversation.

Peggy, I think that is good, I can't at the moment think of anything else or any foreign keys that would go in there.

Keilor, the difference is the exercises is like a key, it will hold all exercises with a set time amount and the calories that amount of time burns. The exercuseOutput table will hold all the exercises the user inputs into their own record and the total amount of calories burned.

Example: exercise table: running 15mins burns 500calories
Exercise output table: user ran 30mins so 2 units x 500 calories outputs total calories burned as 1000 for Kami on Feb. 16, 2012.
Then should have a date created and date modified fields for back end purposes.

So the only info that will duplicate is the exerciseID and the caloriesBurned. Then it should have an input for how many times the user did the set time from the exercise table, then the table will calculate and post the exercise name, calories burned in total (by multiplying the # of times by the calories from exercises, date created. I hope that makes sense. My brain is fried.

Kami

Just a quick question...
I get notifications in my inbox whenever someone posts to the discussion board. Does everyone else get those? I don't want to get off topic--but, I just wanted to make sure that everyone is getting those and if not--maybe a setting can be changed. That way we can stick to the discussion board for the rest of the quarter.

Also--I am not a developer by any stretch of the imagination--so if I can do more of the heavy lifting in the areas that are not programming related--please let me know. I should be done traveling for a few weeks (fingers crossed)--so, please feel free to throw extra work my way.

Peggy

How do we want to tie the users table to the activities_calc table? Since we are having them input the height, weight, gender--the calculations should be different for each activity for each user. So, for example--I am a female, 5'11", weigh 180. So, when I run for 30 minutes--I burn a different amount of calories than a male that is 6'2" that weighs 220 lbs. Does that make sense?

Yes I turned on the notifications but it only on after you post the first time I think unless you manually watch it before you post.


As for the difference I say that there would be different exercise Ids to fit the difference, but Ill think more on it, but there is my opinion. Lol

Example:
Id=1 Running male (180-210) 15mins 200calories
Id=2 running female (125-175) 15 mins 150calories

So the user on the input table will select which exercise from the exercise table they fit into and then that id will carry the needed info in to do the calculations correctly.

And here we though we choose a simple one!! Lol

Kami

I didn't mean to complicate things...

I was just thinking about this--mainly because I use a Nike Fuelband and I was thinking about how it calculates the fuel.

We don't have to make it that complicated. We can simplify it--I like how you presented it. I am cool with whatever the person that has that table presents.

Your all good, it's a great question, exact things we will and are running into. I saw there are multiple run exercises each with a specific grouping and then when we display the results we can code it only show the ones that are relavant!


Complicated is fine, it's the real word! Lol

Kami

Good Morning Everyone,

The height and weight point was a wise one! If we have caloriesBurned columns for each unit by weight markers, calculations can be based on the users weight (not exact, but within a more applicable range). Here is an example:

http://www.nutristrategy.com/caloriesburned.htm

So, we could have caloriesBurnedPerUnit135, caloriesBurnedPerUnit155, and so forth. We cannot be "exact" with our calculations. If we wanted to be more accurate we could add all sorts of things to users like metabolism. At this point, though, do we want to make it more complicated or simply form the foundation for our free, useful, and as-accurate-as-most-services service?

I think that we can stick with a base line calories burned per unit (and not make it more complicated) on the assumption that we can create a reliable equation in our virtual totals columns that uses weight, height, etc.

Kind Regards,
Abi

To reiterate that we don't need to complicate our tables:

"Men: BMR = (13.75 x w) + (5 x h) - (6.76 x a) + 66
Women: BMR = (9.56 x w) + (1.85 x h) - (4.68 x a) + 655
Calories burned by exercise = (METs x 3.5 x weight in kg) / 200 x duration in minutes
For instance, a 180 lb. man (81 kg) playing softball at 5 METS for 60 minutes = (5 x 3.5 x 81)/200 x 60 = 425 calories"

It can all be math-based in our virtual columns.

Thanks for finding and doing all those calculations Abi!

Kami

I'll be posting an example of how this could work in a few minutes (rough draft style).

Good Morning Everyone,

So here is a link to a draft showing how we could calculate various values using virtual columns. Please note that our datatype declarations (varchar, number, array) are overkill. To the best of my knowledge, they are not necessary for our assignment. Additionally, given our attribute limitation, I'm wondering if our primary keys and such might also be unnecessary for this portion of the assignment. If we keep them, however, I think that we can convey visually to the Professor what is (or is not) an attribute using colors. In this example, I've changed auto-calculated fields to grey.

A couple of other notes. In this example I've changed gender to sex. Gender is an indication of how one identifies, sex is a biological factor. It is sex, rather than gender, which impacts caloric burn. Anywho, if we store sex as an array, we will be able to use all of the sex-based calculations from one field which will simplify things a bit. In an attempt to lessen our attributes (closer to 5), I've also included joins. I'm not sure, though, if we can actually join in a virtual column in Oracle. If not, we can do the calculations server-side before it hits the DB. That way, we can still avoid having duplication all over the place.

http://abixel.com/4300ICT/ONeal-Abi-Group-Project-Week6.pdf

Kind Regards,
Abi

Great work, it looks good. I don't see anything that needs added or changed.


Thanks again Abi!,
Kami

So, virtual columns do not allow joins. Virtual columns can only consider data within the column, which means that we will have more than 5 attributes and a necessary redundancy across tables.

That's fine, he said if you had to have a few more no problem.

Good Afternoon Everyone,

Unfortunately we have yet to have any other drafts submitted. As the day is rapidly coming closer to an end, I've revised the initial draft posted to include our necessary duplications. Clarification text has been added (in case the colors or chart in general seems confusing). I offer no guarantees but think that this draft comes close to what we ought to be turning in this week. If anyone votes "yes" after a careful review of the attached, I'd be happy to submit it. Review is important as data elements may have been inadvertently omitted. Ideally we will have a consensus (which we haven't yet achieved). Unless a major objection is received, and a viable completed alternative is submitted to the group, submission will occur at 7:00pm Mountain Time. If and when the assignment is submitted, I will be sure to include a list of those who did (or did not) approve.

http://abixel.com/4300ICT/ONeal-Abi-Group-Project-Week6-final.pdf

Kind Regards,
Abi

Looks great, I can't see or find anything that needs changing or added. Great explanation and it all makes sense to me. Excellent work.


I think the use of the MET is genius instead of duplicating and complicating it with mins and calories burned and weight classes, as I suggested, great solution!

Thank you again for compiling and submitting,
Kami

Thank you for jumping on this. I have had a pretty busy weekend. I did work on the ER Diagram. I was waiting for emails and not looking at this site. Now I know.

Have a good week. Deana

I'm not sure how to make a results/output based attribute. Maybe we havent learned that yet, or I just haven't been paying attention.

Table: exerciseCalc

1. exerciseNumber foreign Key integer(10) (from exercises table)
2. userID foreign key integer(10) (from Users table)
3. amountExercise varchar(255) (the "units")
4. timeStamp (use SQL> SELECT CURRENT_TIMESTAMP FROM dual;)
5.

Sorry. I had this all written last night and never submitted. I have no idea why it didn't go through. Hope it works out! It's been a killer week for me. I looked at the draft. Looks great

Submission Complete

Yeah! Thanks again Abi!

Stress relieved... New week ;(

I know I am a few minutes late in chiming in here--but I think the draft looks great. Thanks for jumping in, Abi.

I just wanted to clarify for everyone that we do have until Monday night at 10 pm mountain to submit our assignments. I know that there was a great deal of scrambling today and that Deana was originally going to do the diagram. I know that none of us like to wait until the very last minute--but I also wasn't able to log in until just a few minutes ago and realized that Abi submitted the diagram for this week.

Are we decided that Sunday night is the night that we will submit and we are forfeiting that extra day for tweaks? I noticed in looking at the user table that there were a couple of additions (which I am totally grateful for)--as I forgot age. But, there was a field labeled userBMR. The way that this is calculated--should this have been labeled BMI (body mass index)?

Just throwing this out there. Thanks so much! I don't want to rock the boat--I just want to make sure that we have all the time we need to get the best grade possible--as we are all very busy and have very different schedules.

Peggy