Having data in a spreadsheet can be fine for many types of data and projects, but when you want to start interrogating the data in more complex ways a relational database is much more powerful. There are numerous programmes around to create such a database in (MySQL is a powerful free one), but before we get to that stage it is necessary first to plan out the database, going back to first principles.

I propose covering these first principles step by step, then working our way together through a few sample datasets to think about how we would structure that data for a relational database. If you have some data you would like to go through, feel free to bring it along.