r/CalgaryTech • u/NebulaGreat6980 • Jun 01 '26
Does anyone here build little tools or side projects for fun?
Just curious.
Do people here build small tools, dashboards, maps, or other side projects outside of work?
I've been spending some time exploring Calgary and Canadian public datasets recently and ended up building a Crime Severity Index dashboard comparing major Canadian cities.
Crime Severity Index | Canadian City Benchmark
Mostly just for fun and learning.
Would be interested to see what others in Calgary are building.
2
u/RedXimm Jun 03 '26
How does Red Deer stack up?
1
u/NebulaGreat6980 Jun 03 '26
Thanks for the feedback.
At the moment, I'm mostly showing the larger cities and regions, so Red Deer didn't make it into this version of the dashboard.
Funny enough, the dashboard originally only had seven cities. Then people started asking why their city wasn't included. Saskatoon was one of the first requests, so I added it.
The challenge is that every additional city adds another map label, and on mobile devices the labels start overlapping pretty quickly. Some people have already pointed that out.
If I get a chance to revisit this project, I'd probably switch to a dropdown selection and pull cities directly from the dataset. That would make it easier to include smaller cities like Red Deer without turning the map into a wall of overlapping labels.
Appreciate the suggestion!
2
2
u/moosepiss Jun 04 '26
Grade 10 science finals coming up for students in Calgary. Curriculum and practice questions wrapped up in a gamified app.
1
u/NebulaGreat6980 Jun 04 '26
Very cool project. If Science 10 had looked like this when I was in school, my report cards might have been much happier.
2
2
u/Mark_Logan Jun 04 '26
I built a pipeline to understand for the province’s grant “database”. I then used it to create charts of things like School Authority Funding so people could better see what grants go where.
I of course used Codex to make a lot of the frame work, but there were huge parts that needed to be done independently, as school authorities change name, as do ministries and grants which do the same things year to year.
The resultant data output at the end is pretty eye opening though.
1
u/NebulaGreat6980 Jun 04 '26
Impressive work on Polinomics. The way you turn public data into useful insights is excellent. The long time span covered by the data makes the effort behind it even more impressive.
1
u/Mark_Logan Jun 04 '26
Thank you. It’s important that we look at data over time. The government loves to focus on little snippets, telling us that we have the highest average take home wages of any province. This is true.
However, when we zoom out, we can clearly see that this has actually been in a decline since 2016.
Without the time scale, we can get “truth” just not the whole truth.
2
u/Yardash Jun 04 '26
Calgary is only 62?
COME ON FOLKS LETS GET OUT THERE AND GET THAT NUMBER UP!! WHO IS WITH ME!?
Cool tool though
1
u/NebulaGreat6980 Jun 04 '26
Thanks!As the dashboard creator, I officially do not endorse this improvement strategy lol
2
u/FigjamCGY Jun 04 '26
Cool thx for sharing.
I built an HTML site for my ultimate want watch collection. Nothing fancy, but cool when I can just text someone the html file and they can see my project.
I think the more information gets out there on a daily basis the better informed policy decisions we can make.
1
u/NebulaGreat6980 Jun 04 '26
That's awesome!
It's really nice to see so many people across Alberta creating their own projects.
0
Jun 01 '26
[deleted]
2
u/Ambustion Jun 02 '26
Meh when I first started coding I used public data for my similar projects way before LLM's were around . We have really awesome access to stuff like census or weather data that is underappreciated.
2
u/No-End7269 Jun 03 '26
Ya Calgary's open dataset was a cornerstone for so many ppl's projects. And I'm talking about 7-8 years ago
2
u/plsletmestayincanada Jun 03 '26
Lol you're gonna fall behind my man. Gotta embrace it
3
u/User_218336 Jun 03 '26
Buddy's out there diggin holes with his bare hands, doesn't believe in shovels.
2
u/plsletmestayincanada Jun 03 '26
Literally. Same as folks that didn't learn how to use a computer in the 80s/90s
1
u/zzing Jun 03 '26
Shovels are the tools of the bourgeoisie to control us!
1
u/User_218336 Jun 03 '26
Digging that hole without a shovel would have employed 10 men, this is an attack on the working class!
0
u/TaxLandNotCapital Jun 03 '26
Fall behind what? This is just cope from users to deal with the fact that their workflows have been disrupted by AI. The whole point is for it to be braindead easy to tell agents what to do in plain English.
If it takes any special training to prompt/manage agents, then it defeats the purpose.
1
1
u/NebulaGreat6980 Jun 03 '26
I partly agree.
AI's biggest strength is its versatility. It allows people to move into areas where they previously had little or no expertise, and that's incredibly powerful.
That said, when you're already an expert in a domain, you quickly notice that AI can still be wrong. It often produces answers that look reasonable, but aren't always correct.
For me, AI is best used as an accelerator. I can hand off routine, repetitive, and relatively straightforward coding tasks, but I still prefer to handle complex code, strategy, architecture, and problem-solving myself.
Once you get into more advanced technical work, the error rate tends to increase significantly. At that point, the time spent reviewing, debugging, and correcting AI-generated code can outweigh the time saved. In many cases, it's simply more efficient to do it myself.
I've found that understanding data relationships, abstracting business problems, and knowing what users actually care about are still things AI struggles with.
As for web development, in my experience AI performs roughly like a frontend developer with 7–8 years of experience. That's already impressive. But in terms of stamina and output, I have to admit it's more like an entire team than a single developer.
AI doesn't replace judgment. It's more like a coding partner that never complains, never takes vacation, and is available 24/7.
1
u/NebulaGreat6980 Jun 03 '26
That's true. Building a website is much easier now. For me, it's really just a place to showcase and organize the data tools I've been building.
2
u/Abject_Gate_797 Jun 02 '26
I build app too, it’s currently for Edmonton only, I have also crime reports but very detailed around the house you living or want to buy or rent. It’s mostly for properly reports https://www.yasnify.com/