TouchGrass 🌿 — Turning Screen Time into Outdoor Adventures with Local AI | Hacktoberfest 2026

Samruddhi Patil — Sat, 10 Oct 2026 07:40:57 +0000

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

What I Built

🌿 TouchGrass — A little less scrolling. A lot more wonder.

TouchGrass is an AI-powered outdoor adventure companion that encourages people to take a break from their screens and reconnect with nature.

Sometimes, we want to go outside but don't know what to do. TouchGrass solves this by generating personalized outdoor quests based on the user's mood, available time, and preferred adventure style.

✨ Key Features

AI-Generated Quests: Generate personalized outdoor adventures with four activities.
Mood-Based Personalization: Choose a mood that matches how you feel.
Flexible Duration: Choose a 15, 30, or 60-minute adventure.
Adventure Styles: Choose from different nature-focused experiences, such as mindful walks and nature exploration.
Task Checklist and XP: Complete activities and earn experience points.
Adventure Journal: Save completed quests and personal reflections.
Progress Dashboard: Track completed quests, XP, streaks, and achievement badges.

The goal is simple: use AI to encourage real-world experiences instead of spending more time scrolling.

Demo

🌐 Live Website: TouchGrass

🎥 Video Demo: Watch TouchGrass in action

Code

💻 GitHub Repository: SamruddhiPatil0078/TouchGrass

Explore the source code, project structure, setup instructions, and implementation.

How I Built It

I built TouchGrass using React, Vite, Tailwind CSS, React Router, and Lucide React for the frontend and user interface.

For the AI component, I used Gemma 3 1B, Google's open-weight language model, running locally through Ollama.

How It Works

The user selects their mood, available time, and preferred adventure style.
The application sends a prompt to the locally running Ollama model through the Vite development proxy.
Gemma 3 1B generates a personalized outdoor quest containing four activities.
The user completes activities, checks them off, and earns XP.
Completed quests and reflections can be revisited through the journal and progress dashboard.

I also used browser localStorage to retain quest history and progress locally.

One of my main goals was to make AI useful beyond the screen. Rather than using AI only to answer questions or generate content, TouchGrass uses it to encourage people to step outside and experience the world around them.

The frontend is deployed on Vercel. The AI generation currently relies on a locally running Ollama service, so online AI functionality requires additional deployment configuration.

Why Does Open Innovation Matter?

Open innovation made it possible for me to experiment with an open-weight AI model and build an AI-powered application without depending on a paid hosted AI API.

Using Gemma 3 1B through Ollama gave me the opportunity to explore local inference and understand how an AI model can be integrated into a real-world web application.

Open-source tools also make it easier for other developers to explore the code, learn from the implementation, and contribute improvements.

For me, open innovation is about making technology more accessible and giving developers the freedom to experiment, build, and share their ideas.

TouchGrass reflects that belief: technology should help us live better, not keep us glued to our screens.

Prize Categories

Gemma — Best Use of Gemma: Used Google's open-weight Gemma 3 1B model through Ollama for local inference to generate personalized outdoor adventure quests based on users' moods, available time, and preferred adventure styles.

Built with 🌿 to encourage a little less scrolling and a lot more wonder.

devchallenge #hf26challenge

DEV Community: Samruddhi Patil