BREAKING DOWN THE SYSTEM
Information Representation + Data Visualization +
Entity Relationship Diagram (ERD) + Python + SQL + PHP
CONTEXT
In this class, we focused on using SQL and php to create a database. In this particular project, my team mates and I used an Entity Relationship Diagram (ERD) to visualize who the entities are(denoted by boxed and bolded type face) inside a University system. ERDs are useful tools to help visualize a system, allowing both coders and clients to visualize how a database would work. After we made a list of our entities, we list out the attributes of each entities, always giving each entity its own ID and any features that might describe the entity. We then start drawing the relationship between each entity (denoted by the diamond shapes) giving certain action words that would help describe the direction of the relationship. Finally, as a way to measure the hierarchy among entities and relationships, we look at the type of relationship each relationship has (one to many [1:N], one to one [1:1]).
MY ROLE
3 cups
Flour
1 cup
Sugar
2 tbsp.
Salt
1½ cups
Butter
Entity
Relationship
One to One
One to Many
Attributes
Primary Key
Weak Entity
I was responsible for creating the ERD and html for the final project. I helped with creating and inputing fake data into our database and I helped write the SQL commands for various prompts.
OUTCOME
Between visualizing the system and creating the database, we had to create a database from scratch, storing it in an excel file sheet, and uploading it onto our database using SQL. Because manually typing it in was too time consuming, one of my team mates wrote a python program that would convert excel data into SQL format. Below, is a fraction of our code for our final product showcasing a mixture of html, SQL and php. Here is a link to the final product.
Below shows how we used SQL code to reach into the database and collect specified data. Although it is not visually appealing, we were able to display it in a way that is easy for our professor to view and use.
My group using a white board to do an ERD conversion for a Robot system