Alright, so let me tell you about this “Currie Cup Log” thing I’ve been messing around with. It’s been a bit of a journey, not gonna lie.
It all started when I thought, “Hey, I need to keep track of my Currie Cup matches better.” You know, like a proper record. So, I started sketching out a basic table in my notebook. Just date, teams, score, and some notes. Real simple stuff.
Then I figured, why not go digital? So, I fired up my laptop and opened up a spreadsheet. Google Sheets, to be exact. Started transferring the data from my notebook. It was tedious, but I wanted it done right. Used some basic formatting, you know, bold headers and stuff.
Next up, I wanted to get a little fancier. Added some columns for things like “Man of the Match,” “Key Moments,” and “Weather Conditions.” Started filling those in as I watched the games. It was actually kinda fun. Felt like a real analyst, haha.
But just a table wasn’t cutting it. I wanted to see some trends. That’s when I dove into the charting features. Tried a few different types. Line graphs for scores over time, bar charts for win percentages. It was cool to see it all visualized.
Then I thought, “Let’s get serious.” I started looking into some scripting. I wanted to automate some of the data entry. Nothing too crazy, just some simple scripts to pull data from websites. It was a bit of a learning curve, but I managed to get some basic stuff working.
- First, I tried using some import functions in Google Sheets. Didn’t work great.
- Then, I messed around with Python and some web scraping libraries. That was more promising.
- Finally, I got a script that would pull the latest scores from a sports website and update my spreadsheet.
Now, the log is actually pretty useful. I can quickly see who’s winning, what the trends are, and all that. I even added some conditional formatting to highlight winning streaks and stuff. It’s not perfect, but it’s a heck of a lot better than just scribbling in a notebook.
It’s still a work in progress, of course. I want to add some more advanced analytics and maybe even build a little web app to display the data. But for now, I’m pretty happy with how it’s turned out.
Learnings from the Currie Cup Log Project
The biggest takeaway is that even a simple project like this can teach you a lot. I learned a ton about spreadsheets, scripting, and data analysis. Plus, it’s just fun to build something that’s actually useful.
