Welcome to the eXtreme Sports Database

Welcome to the eXtreme Sports Database! This website is the brainchild of Team 15, consisting of Tim Nary, Matt Avery, Sean Perugini, and Mike McCallips. This website is the final project as part of our IST 210: Database Concepts class. The eXtreme Sports Database came out of an idea early on in the Spring semester of 2008 when posed with the question, “How could you use a database to provide information to people through a web application?” And so it began.

The website has passed through many revisions, initially starting as just a website to display information about a few sports and tricks. More complexity was added through enabling users to interact with each other, and network about extreme sports. A search algorithm was also developed to find and rank pages based on a query, which was more complex than expected due to data spread amongst multiple tables.

The eXtreme Sports Database features many unique pages. The index page displays content based on get variables, making many customized pages using a rough template. There is a complex user management system, from registering an account to email activation, editing user profiles and preferences, and finding other users with the community page. This truly adds a personal experience to our website. Please enjoy our website. Hopefully it will prove to be a useful and enjoyable experience.

Sports Listings

Below is a listing of the eXtreme Sports that are currently in our database, along with a brief description of the sport. To find out more information about a sport, click the hyperlink next to its picture to be taken to the sport's page.

	BMX: BMX stands for bicycle motocross. It has two main styles, racing and freestyle. Freestyle has 5 main disciplines; Street, Vert, Park, Flatland and Dirt. It began in California in the 1970s when youths began copying their motocross heroes on their bicycles. Over the years its popularity has spread immensely. It's been a key event at the X-Games and will be featured as an Olympic sport for the first time at the 2008 Summer Games in Beijing.
	Motocross: Motocross is a sport where you ride a motorcyle off road and either race it or perform tricks. It began in Great Britain in the 1920s where it was originally called Scrambles. Popularity grew greatly in the 1930s and the technology in the bikes became more and more advanced. In the 1960s two-stroke engines became so much more advanced than their four-stroke bretheren that they became the predominant racing class. It was at this point that the Japanese companies began to expand into the sport. In the 1980s American riders started to win championships and the sport hit a new level of popularity.
	Rollerblading: Rollerblading is a sport where you perform tricks with boots with wheels attached to your feet. Rollerskating has been around in one form or another since the 1700s but it was in 1979 that it became close to the sport we know today. It was in this year that the inline skate was developed. This was created by Rollerblade, Inc. and as a result inline skates are now called rollerblades. Aggressive Inline began in the 1980s and started with people jumping over obstacles and doing spins in mid air. The three main disciplines are street skating, vert skating and park skating.
	Skateboarding: Skateboarding is a sport where you perform tricks and ride a skateboard. It began in the late 1950s and spread in popularity until the mid 1960s when the sport’s popularity waned. Interest picked up again in the mid 1970s with the invention of the polyurethane wheel. As popularity grew companies began to create axels, or "trucks", designed specifically for skateboarding. In the 1980s came vert skateboarding and expanded to street style later on. This brought about modern skateboarding as we know it.
	Skiing: Skiing is a sport where you ride on a long flat device strapped to each foot. Skiing has been around for thousands and thousands of years. It was invented by the Nordic people as a means of transportation. One of the main trick disciplines is Aerials in the Winter Olympics. The skier has to perform twists and spins off of a ramp and are judged on the difficulty and the actual performance. Another discipline is called Moguls where the skier goes down a course filled with bumps, or moguls, and preforms tricks at ramps in spots along the course.
	Snowboarding: Snowboarding is a sport in which you ride a board down a snowy slope and perform tricks. The first snowboard was a toy called the Snurfer created in 1965. It was essentially a skateboard deck with a string attached to control it. In the 1970s and 80s new technological innovations took place, with one of the biggest being the bindings to hold the rider's feet in place. Jake Burton Carpenter first showed this creation off at the 1979 World Snurfing Championships. In 1985 the first Snowboarding World Cup was held in Austria. It is now an event in the Winter Olympics and the Winter X-Games.
	Wakeboarding: Wakeboarding is a sport in which a person rides on a board and is towed by a boat. The rider uses the boats wake to perform tricks. Wakeboarding began in late 1980s and has increased in popularity since. Its creation came about as a result of skiboarding. Wakeboarding was featured in the second X-Games. Many competitions were started throughout the 1990s as a result. Most of the groundwork was laid by Eric Perez.
	Water Skiing: Water Skiing is a sport in which a person rides on skis on the water and is towed by a boat. Water Skiing was created in Minnesota in 1922. The first equipment was two planks that served as skis and a clothsline for a tow rope. Trick skiing involves 2 twenty second passes in which the competitor performs as many tricks as possible. The judges then award a score to the participant based on the difficulty level of the trick and the execution of the trick. The skier with the most points wins.