CanopyRoute Pune — Offline Open-Source AI Trail Audio Runner

Abhinav Mehta — Sun, 11 Oct 2026 08:04:05 +0000

This is a submission for the Hacktoberfest Open-Source AI Challenge Week 1: Touch Grass

What I Built

Most modern outdoor and trail running apps create a paradoxical problem: they encourage us to get out into nature, but keep our eyes glued to bright phone screens checking turn-by-turn prompts, heart rate charts, and elevation contours.

I built CanopyRoute Pune to turn this dynamic on its head: make the screen the shortest part of the run, put your phone in your pocket, and run by sound.

Designed specifically for the tekdis (hills), banyan groves, and mountain crests of Pune, Maharashtra, CanopyRoute is an offline-first scenic trail route planner and auditory hill running companion powered by local open-weight AI.

Core Features

Touch Grass Pocket Run Mode: Select your trail, tap "Start Pocket Run", and slide the phone into your running shorts or vest. The screen switches to an ultra-low-power OLED dark display while in-browser speech synthesis and haptics deliver sensory grounding cues (e.g., "Notice the earthy petrichor scent of damp red murrum soil warming up under the morning sun") as you pass GPS milestones.
Natural Language Discovery: Instead of rigid dropdown filters, runners describe their desired run in natural language ("Quiet 5k morning run on Vetal Tekdi with peacocks, soft red soil, and banyan trees"). An on-device open-weight embedding model ranks trails by terrain, canopy density, and flora.
Accurate Regional Cartography: Powered by Leaflet with high-resolution ESRI Topographic & Satellite tiles strictly bounded to Pune and the Western Ghats (minZoom: 10, maxBounds set to Sahyadri coordinates), ensuring authentic local hill contours without border clipping issues.
Interactive Cursor Companion: A smooth, physics-based flying vector companion follows your cursor across the screen with natural banking and directional rotation. You can switch between the Blue Mormon Butterfly (Maharashtra's state butterfly with 3D flapping wings) and the Hill Honeybee with a sparkling pollen dust trail.
Curated Pune Sahyadri Trails:
- Vetal Tekdi & ARAI Forest Ridge (5.8 km • Highest crest in Pune, red murrum soil, peacocks, wild hares)
- Taljai Hills & Peacock Reserve (4.6 km • Protected forest reserve with shaded banyan groves and resident dancing peacocks)
- Sinhagad Fort Mountain Trail (8.2 km • Historic basalt steps, cool valley fog, Karvi flower blossoms, Khadakwasla reservoir views)
- Pashan Lake Bamboo & Wetland Sanctuary (4.2 km • Golden bamboo groves, lotus water lilies, and kingfishers)
- Baner Hill & Windmill Plateau Ridge (5.2 km • Panoramic 360-degree ridge run overlooking the Baner-Pashan valley)
Pune Botanical & Wildlife Field Guide: An offline field guide to native Western Ghats trees (Banyan aerial prop roots, Gulmohar scarlet blooms, Karvi mass-flowering shrubs, Champa) and wildlife (Indian Peacock, Blue Mormon Butterfly, Black-naped Hare, Hill Honeybee).

Demo

Live Deployed App: https://abh19avm.github.io/Touch-Grass-hacktober-week1-/
Repository: https://github.com/Abh19avM/Touch-Grass-hacktober-week1-

(Tip: Open the live link on mobile or desktop, describe a trail in plain English, click "Pocket Run Mode", and listen to the procedural nature soundscape and live landmark voice cues!)

Code

Abh19avM / Touch-Grass-hacktober-week1-

🦚 CanopyRoute Pune — सह्याद्री Trail Running & Nature Audio Companion

Built for Hacktoberfest 2026 Open-Source AI Challenge: Week 1 ("Touch Grass")
Theme: Build something with open-source AI at its core that gets people off the screen and into the world.
Live Site: https://abh19avm.github.io/Touch-Grass-hacktober-week1-/
Repository: https://github.com/Abh19avM/Touch-Grass-hacktober-week1-

🌲 What is CanopyRoute Pune?

CanopyRoute Pune is an offline-first scenic trail route planner and auditory hill running companion powered by local open-weight AI (@huggingface/transformers), built specifically for the tekdis, banyan groves, and mountain crests of Pune, Maharashtra.

Modern fitness and mapping apps keep runners glued to glowing screens, constantly staring at digital turn-by-turn prompts, elevation contours, and pace alerts. CanopyRoute is built with the opposite philosophy: make the screen the shortest part of the experience, put the phone in your pocket, and run by sound.

✨ Core Features

Touch Grass Pocket Run Mode
- Select your trail, tap "Start Pocket…

View on GitHub

How I Built It

CanopyRoute is engineered to run 100% locally on the runner's device with zero external server dependencies:

Local Open-Weight AI Inference (@huggingface/transformers):
- Runs Xenova/all-MiniLM-L6-v2 locally in the browser using WebAssembly / WebGPU via ONNX Runtime Web.
- When a runner types a sensory query like "Lush post-monsoon banyan grove with peacocks and soft dirt", the model computes 384-dimensional vector embeddings on-device and calculates cosine similarity against curated trail document vectors in milliseconds.
- Includes a deterministic, zero-network edge vectorizer fallback for instantaneous query resolution on resource-constrained mobile browsers.
Procedural Auditory Coaching Engine:
- Instead of streaming pre-recorded audio files over cellular networks, CanopyRoute uses the Web Audio API to procedurally synthesize ambient mountain breezes and wind noise using pink noise buffers and biquad resonant filters.
- Combined with the Web Speech Synthesis API, it articulates mindful landmark cues, heart-rate pacing reminders, and botanical observations directly through your headphones while the screen is locked in your pocket.
Cartography & Leaflet Integration:
- Built with React-Leaflet and Leaflet, centered on Pune ([18.5240, 73.8180]).
- Regional constraints (maxBounds: [[17.80, 73.20], [19.20, 74.40]]) ensure runners explore authentic Pune hill tracks with high-resolution ESRI Topographic and Satellite tile layers.
Vector Illustrations & CSS 3D Animations:
- Built completely without generic emojis. Features custom SVG vectors with 3D transform animations (rotateY wing flapping on the Blue Mormon butterfly, high-frequency buzz on the honeybee, and spring-smoothed mouse tracking).

Why Does Open Innovation Matter?

Mountain Trails Have Zero Cell Service:
When running through the deep forested valleys of Sinhagad Fort or behind the ridges of Taljai, cloud-based proprietary APIs (like OpenAI or Anthropic) fail instantly due to lack of connectivity. Open-weight models downloaded to browser cache execute seamlessly offline on mountain summits without a single bar of cell reception.
Uncompromising Biometric & Location Privacy:
Running routes, GPS coordinates, pacing, heart rate, and schedule patterns are sensitive personal telemetry. With closed cloud APIs, this data is sent over the wire to remote servers. With open-source on-device AI, zero bytes of biometric or location data ever leave the runner's phone.
Zero Cost for Grassroots Running Clubs:
Non-profit trail conservancies and community running groups in cities like Pune can host and share this tool indefinitely with zero recurring API subscription fees or token bills.
Freedom to Adapt for Local Ecosystems:
Open innovation allows developers anywhere in the world to tailor environmental models to their local bioregion—from the red murrum soil and banyan trees of Maharashtra to alpine pine forests across the globe.

Prize Categories

Hacktoberfest Open-Source AI Challenge: Week 1 (Touch Grass)
Best Offline / Edge AI Experience
Open Innovation & Community Impact

DEV Community: Abhinav Mehta