Options For Databases ?

Well my project will basically involve a database of the sports info of students in my school. It has to work with about 1000 profiles, each containing a personal info record (basically an address book) and a Sports Info record which has some simple information like what sport they do for winter and summer but it also has some records like "Training Info" which will contain a some 10 fields. It'll wind up something like an array of records of records of records.

One of the key points for assessment is that we employ search and sort functionality explicitly using algorithms that have been provided to us. Essentially we'll have to write up our own subs for binary searches and stuff like that.

Now this is group work and I was put in charge of making the database, one thing I'm unsure of is what I should use. Most of the other groups are using .txt files to store their databases as they've been told that these are easier than Access files. However their databases don't appear to be quite as complex as the one my group's planning. Another random titbit of info I heard was that using our own search functions to search an Access file would not only be slower than using the inbuilt ones (another random something gleaned from conversation) [does it have inbuilt search functions?? I heard somewhere else it didn't] but also that it'd be slower than searching a .txt file with a similar sub.

I'm not sure of the veracity of those statements, however I still want to ask if you guys have any recommendations for what I should use to make the database with. The only ones I know of are CSV text files and MS Access, I'd be very grateful if you could point me in the of a good "thing" to use with VB.net for this kind of project.