Upcoming: A Year in Your Own Data — A Build-a-thon

You've been collecting data all year. Let's make something out of it.

Join tcplot for a build-a-thon where the dataset is you. Bring a year of your own data — steps, sleep, songs, spending, miles, messages, books, photos — and spend the session turning it into a visualization worth keeping. Code it, draw it, or build it by hand.

The best personal-data projects aren't about the numbers; they're about the story only you can tell. A year is long enough to hold a season, a habit, a heartbreak, a move. We'll help you find the one thread worth pulling.

An example, built from one person's data

Here's one I made from a Google Takeout export — a whole YouTube Music library, 6,497 songs by 1,473 artists, listed A→Z. Each bar is an artist; its length and color show how many songs are by them (red = the most, violet = the fewest). Press play and turn your sound on: one steady beat per artist, and the pitch is mapped to the count just like the color — a run of one-song artists ticks along at the same low pitch, and the pitch jumps up when an artist has more songs. Or grab the list (or the handle on the right) and drag to scrub the play position anywhere in the A→Z.

Play ▶ Restart | Speed: 1× 2× 4× 🔊 sound on

Built with p5.js from a Google Takeout export — the exact same kind of personal data you'll bring and work with at the build-a-thon. The same dataset could just as easily be a map, a calendar, or a string of beads.

What you'll do

• ▸ Bring — or pull on the spot — a year of your own personal data
• ▸ Pick the one question you actually want it to answer
• ▸ Build a visualization — interactive, static, or physical — solo or in a small group
• ▸ Share what you made and what it told you

Where to find a year of your data

Most of it is already sitting in an app, waiting for an export. A few places to look:

• ▸ Health apps — Apple Health, Google Fit, or Fitbit export steps, sleep, and workouts day by day.
• ▸ Music — request your Spotify streaming history: every track you played, with timestamps.
• ▸ Google Takeout — export your data: location history, photos metadata, search, YouTube, and more.
• ▸ Money — download a year of transactions from your bank or card and tally spending by category.
• ▸ Movement & media — Strava and Garmin for runs and rides; Letterboxd and Goodreads for films and books.
• ▸ Screen time — iOS Screen Time or Android Digital Wellbeing for how the hours actually went.

Some exports take a day or two to arrive, so request yours before the event. Your data stays yours — bring only what you're comfortable working with in a room of friendly people.

What to bring

Your laptop and charger, a year of your data (or be ready to download it), and whatever tools you love — D3, Tableau, ggplot2, Observable, a spreadsheet, or just paper and beads. No tools at all is fine too.

Who this is for

Anyone curious about their own life in data — seasoned coders and total beginners alike. Come build something only you could make.

Hope to see you there!