Lecture Post-Database

MY IDEA:

Swim Vision allows swimmers to literally watch their own race from an aerial view so that they can monitor the progress and speed of every single swimmer in their race. There is a tiny monitor in the goggle lenses that display the race being recorded by a camera positioned somewhere above the pool. The video being played in the lenses will be transparent so that the swimmers can still see where he/she is going. If the screen is too distracting, however, swimmers have the option to turn off the video or they will receive alerts that flashing across the screen with messages such as “approaching wall” or “flip turn in 5 yards.” Swim Vision will have two different modes, “Competition Mode” and “Practice Mode.”          

LECTURE:

            Databases would benefit Swim Vision technology because they could be used to store all of the information that the goggles track. A swimmer who swims multiple times a week would complete a large number of laps/yards, burn a lot of calories, and have several different heart rate readings. With all of this information, there needs to be an resource that can store as well as organize all of this vast information and make sense of all of the numbers, and I think that a database is exactly the technology that these goggles need.

            Within the database, there would be several tables that represent different attributes. The attributes would consist of the goggles capabilities such as number of laps swum, number of calories burned, heart rate, and speed, and they would be arranged by day, week or month depending on the user’s preference. There would also be a table that calculates the averages of this date (average number of calories burned, average heart rate, etc).

            Although it can sometimes be difficult to relate the class material to our products, I actually envision databases to be a realistic implementation into Swim Vision goggles. I think that it is a necessary technology that my goggles would otherwise not be able to function without. All of the information needs to be organized somehow and I think that databases are the best way to do so. The database would also allow for quick access, which is another necessary feature for this product. People need to be able to review their results and ensure that they are making progress, and the organized database containing different tables and attributes would allow users to do this with ease.