My Rocket and Launch-tracking "app", as implemented in Airtable

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That's a bummer. I may have to do some research on offline options.
Indeed. I wish I had checked this out more thoroughly at the start; it might not have changed my own decision to use Airtable but I could at least have avoided misleading others.

Please keep us updated if you find something better that handles the offline case. There are a lot of database apps out there; unfortunately most of them are pay-to-download, and I wanted something that I could at least try out for free before committing. I'm going to do some research on this too.
 
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Also important: for those who want to try this, please check out this page describing the limitations of the free version: https://support.airtable.com/hc/en-us/articles/115010928147-Airtable-plans.

For me, 1200 records should comfortably last me the rest of my life, but for those who fly a *lot* and/or have hundreds of rockets to keep track of, that might not be enough. The Plus plan is such a jump in price (free -> $120/year) that I'm guessing most folks won't want to go there. So make sure you're comfortable with the limitations before diving in.

As for me, I'm going to try out Mobi DB, which lacks some of the flexibility of Airtable (i.e., no web client, no Mac client) but has some benefits (only $10/year for basic license, off-line operation, what seems to be tighter layout on forms). I'll keep reporting back here with whatever I learn.
 
Just a quick update on my endeavors (and a prod to see how Mobi is working out). I went back to Memento and paid the couple dollars to get full functionality on my computer. I'm not sure I really needed it, but it was a lot easier building the database and inputting data. I think the free version has a fair amount of usability for me - https://wiki.mementodatabase.com/index.php/Feature_Comparison

At this point, I've built decently functioning rocket and motors table. I think the next step will be a launch table and launch site table. Launches will pull in info from the launch site, rockets, and motors tables and should have the ability to add notes, pictures, and (hopefully) flight data.

I *think* that once I have built everything, I can stop paying the $6 for the full desktop version and still have functionality of the PC and Android apps, with edits to the structure being more difficult.

That said, I will publish the templates on Memento so you all can give it a try. And to give Neil his thread back, I'll start a new one with that information when I get it all done.
 
@Budro0 built something in Mememto DB: https://www.rocketryforum.com/threads/memento-db-better-than-a-notebook.165299/

I think the takeaway from this thread should not be to go use Airtable, or to use exactly what I've done here, although if you can work within the 1200 record limit for the free version and are OK with being tethered to the internet then it works great.

Rather, go play with available DB apps. It's really easy to put something together that organizes your data in a useful way, without needing any particular database expertise (you won't need to be writing SQL queries or anything if you don't want to).
 
3. Launches: This is a list of "launches", each of which is a single date. That's a bit limiting, but I couldn't figure out a straightforward way to enter a multi-day launch as an entity. It's just as well, probably; I really want a single date attached to each flight.​
It might work to make an Events table. Each record consists of an event name and links to one or more launches. For myself, I'd then name the launches "<Event> Day 1", "<Event> Day 2", etc. If one wants to (I don't think I would" one could break launch days down, say "<Event> Morning" or "<Event> Day 2 Night".

Also, I think you should add a Time field to the Flight table. One of the main reasons to have a database of flight data is to look for trends. "Hey, look at this; I've got more lost rockets between 2:00 and 4:00 than all other times of day combined! Guess I should lay off launching in the early afternoon."

Anyway, I'd like to give it a try. email address in PM to come in a moment.
 
It might work to make an Events table. Each record consists of an event name and links to one or more launches. For myself, I'd then name the launches "<Event> Day 1", "<Event> Day 2", etc. If one wants to (I don't think I would" one could break launch days down, say "<Event> Morning" or "<Event> Day 2 Night".
Good idea, at least for those who attend multi-day launches... for me, so far, the number of multi-day launches I've attended is zero, and there are none in the foreseeable future. So I don't need that extra layer of hierarchy.

But you'll find that it's super-duper easy to add, once you start playing with it.
Also, I think you should add a Time field to the Flight table. One of the main reasons to have a database of flight data is to look for trends. "Hey, look at this; I've got more lost rockets between 2:00 and 4:00 than all other times of day combined! Guess I should lay off launching in the early afternoon."
That's a pretty good idea, and easy to add. [Not so easy after all. There doesn't seem to be a field type for "time" that you can enter yourself. It's either attached to a date, or auto-created (create time for the record, or modify time, or whatever) Could do it with a plain old text field, but then hard to do searches. Joe you can let us know how you solve this. :)]
 
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Simple: I'll just hack the Airtable code behind the scenes to create a time data type, and make it available through the phone app and the web interface. They'll never know what hit them.

Or maybe not.

I'll give it a realistic shot and let you know what I come up with.
 
Just sign up for Airtable, send me your email address and I'll share it and you can try it out. It's all free, so no commitment.


I took the Estes values from their motor chart... A mistake I guess. I'll go fetch better values from Thruscurve.org.

Still need to think of a good solution to dealing with clusters and multi-stagers, with regard to Total impulse summation.

UPDATE: I repopulated with values from Thruscurve. Look better?
View attachment 455413
[email protected]
 
Today I actually (hold onto your seat) flew some rockets, and had my first opportunity to actually use my app "in the field". Overall, I would have to say it was fantastic, despite a few areas for improvement that may or may not be possible with the free version of Airtable.

First I created a "Launch" entry for the day. I added all the rockets that i brought with me.
1630189094228.png
Then, when I created each flight, the first field I set was the launch, and that linked the flights back to the launch (as you can see in the "flights" column here). Here was one limitation: there was no way for it to know, or suggest by default, that I was at the 8/28/21 launch, and therefore I had to select it for each flight. Because I had only two launches in the system, it was quite easy, but it's something that could be streamlined with a more customized app.

Next, I selected the rocket. Here again, I couldn't figure any way for it to only offer the me rockets I had brought with me, so I had to select from the full list each time. This was by far the biggest annoyance, and could be crippling to those with a very large number of rockets. Again, a more customized app could show only the list of rockets at the launch, which would generally be a much smaller list and easier to pick from. I can't rule out that it is possible in Airtable, but I'll need to do more research.

Then I entered motor (selecting from my table of all motors that I fly, which is all Estes, Q-jets, and a few Aerotechs), a few other misc. bits, and the results of the flight, including how good the delay was, and notes. For example:
1630189459549.png
Despite the problems listed above, overall it was very easy and pleasant to enter the data for each flight; *much* better than writing into a logbook, and the ease made me more likely to actually enter all the data, like whether the deployment, was early, late, or whatever. And now I don't need to transcribe the data into a spreadsheet or anything.

I am really happy I did this, and a bit peeved at myself for never having thought to try it earlier. It all worked pretty much exactly as intended.
 
Next, I selected the rocket. Here again, I couldn't figure any way for it to only offer the me rockets I had brought with me, so I had to select from the full list each time. This was by far the biggest annoyance, and could be crippling to those with a very large number of rockets. Again, a more customized app could show only the list of rockets at the launch, which would generally be a much smaller list and easier to pick from. I can't rule out that it is possible in Airtable, but I'll need to do more research.
I don't know how airtable works but if each rocket is a unique URL you could make some qrcode stickers, put them on a fin, and then scan them with your phone after a flight to go right to its entry. I've thought about doing this but using a static html page for each rocket.

I suppose you could get fancy and put like an RFID tag inside the ebay as well.
 
I don't know how airtable works but if each rocket is a unique URL you could make some qrcode stickers, put them on a fin, and then scan them with your phone after a flight to go right to its entry. I've thought about doing this but using a static html page for each rocket.

I suppose you could get fancy and put like an RFID tag inside the ebay as well.
Interesting idea. I'm not aware of that capability, at least not in the free version I'm using. That would be a nice option.

Really, though, all I need is the ability to limit a selection to a list of items that has already been defined elsewhere. It's the sort of thing that would be trivial in a custom database app, seemingly not so much in one of these ultra easy-to-use generic systems. I'm not going to give up trying on it, though.

The fact that I was able to get so close to what I wanted (but not quite there) is an indication of how easy it would be to build a dedicated app for this. The hardest part might be allowing off-line use, and handling cloud sync. And my experience with my little Airtable experiment suggests to me that it would be really nice and useful app.
 
Just how custom do think such a custom app would be? Are you talking about writing it from the ground up from scratch? I doubt it. I assume there's some database engine or library that you'd start with. You might look for such an engine or library that has the cloud features - sync and offline work - already solved and available.
 
Just how custom do think such a custom app would be? Are you talking about writing it from the ground up from scratch?
Just to be clear, *I'm* not talking about writing it at all. I'm trying to goad someone else into doing, with the promise of possibly hundreds of dollars reward for their many hours of effort. It's a can't-lose proposition.

And of course that hypothetical someone else would start with an existing db engine. Anything else would be folly, unless one's purpose in undertaking such a project was expressly to learn how to write a database. If I were writing this for the iPhone (and if it were I, it would indeed be for the iPhone) then I'd start my investigation here.
 
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