I have been wanting to learn Laravel for some time, but the projects I’ve been passionate about building haven’t really required it. Changing the scope of my projects just to fit Laravel in didn’t feel right. However, the stars aligned, and I now have the perfect project—Volleydrills. If you’ve read through my site or even just know me, you’re aware that my passion is volleyball. As a coach, one of my responsibilities is to run training sessions for my team, and as the club I’m part of grows, we require more coaches to help with these sessions. Knowing which drills to use to target specific aspects of the game is often a difficult challenge. Experienced and long-standing coaches have a plethora of drills at their disposal, while those with less experience only know the ones they’ve participated in. Although some of them know how to set up a drill, they don’t fully understand its objectives, how to modify it to suit the players’ level, or how to make it more challenging. That’s where Volleydrills comes in!
What is Volleydrills?
It’s a platform designed to help coaches manage and organise training sessions. There will be pre-written drills on the site, created by me with help from other coaches, which users can view, search, and filter by category. They will be able to create a session plan by adding drills, and a session overview will show timings and objectives. Users will also have the option to export the session plan as a PDF if they want a physical copy for their sessions.
V1.0
It’s very difficult not to get carried away with new project enthusiasm and think about all the cool features I can add, build, and use. I need to remember that this project is about learning the fundamentals of Laravel, so it’s important I stay focused on that. With this in mind, I want v1 to concentrate on the core elements of the app:
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A single admin user who can create, edit, and delete drills.
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Drills will be categorised.
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A homepage where all drills are listed within their respective categories, with a search function.
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Session plans:
• I want this to work like a shopping cart, where drills are added to a cart viewed as a sidebar. Instead of a total in £’s, it will total the session time in minutes.
• It will have sections to help users understand the structure of the training session, e.g., an overall theme of the drill, warm-ups, main drills, cool-downs.
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Users will be able to export the plan as a PDF, either just listing the names of the drills or including the full description for each.
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For now, I think all data will be stored in local memory.
Future Versions
I think version 1 will create a great foundation for the app and also give me a good understanding of the Laravel framework. As for future features, I have plenty in mind! But again, I need to remember not to get carried away. I plan to split the features into different versions. This way, I can focus on one thing at a time, and it will also allow me to get users to test the features before adding more and refining them.
V2.0
For this version, the main focus will be on users. Currently, session plans are stored in local memory and only one at a time. I want users to be able to bookmark drills so they can access them easily, as well as save their training plans.
- Users will be able to create accounts.
- They can bookmark their favourite drills so they’ll be easily accessible on their dashboard.
- They will also be able to save custom training plans.
V3.0
In this version, I want to significantly expand user functionality by allowing users to create their own drills. However, these user-generated drills will be kept separate from the pre-designed ones on the homepage. It’s important that the pre-designed drills are of high quality and well-designed. They serve as a standard to adhere to, and if users were allowed to add their drills to the homepage, there’s a risk that this standard could drop. To address this, there will be a public drill board where users can create and share their drills with other coaches. Users will have the option to make their drills public or keep them private for their own session plans.
In summary:
- Adding a public drill board where users can bookmark and like public drills.
- Users will be able to create their own drills and keep them private or add them to the public board.
- Users will also be able to build custom session plans from their own drills, community drills, and the pre-designed ones.