DEV Community: Tamim Ts1

Walking Challenge AI: An Open-Source AI That Sends You Outside 🚶

Tamim Ts1 — Fri, 09 Oct 2026 19:52:17 +0000

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

What I Built

Walking Challenge AI is a small web app that turns an ordinary walk into a game.

You pick three things: how long you will walk (10 to 60 minutes), where you are (park, city, college or neighborhood), and how hard you want it (easy, medium or hard). The app then gives you a short list of real-world challenges, like "find 3 different types of trees" or "spend 2 minutes just observing the sky".

The screen is the shortest part of the experience. You spend about 20 seconds on your phone, put it in your pocket, and go outside. When you are back, you tick off what you completed, and a "Walk Complete!" screen closes the loop.

I built it for students like me who spend most of the day on screens and need a small, fun reason to step outside.

Demo

Live demo: https://walking-challenge-ai.vercel.app/

The first run downloads the model (about 1.2 GB), so use Chrome or Edge and give it a minute. After that it is cached by the browser.

The flow is simple: choose time, place and difficulty, get your challenges, walk, tick them off, finish.

Code

Tamimshaikh / walking-challenge-ai

🚶 Walking Challenge AI

An open-source AI that sends you outside. Pick your walk time, place and difficulty, and get a list of real-world challenges. The screen is the shortest part of the experience.

Built for the Hacktoberfest Open-Source AI Challenge Week 1: Touch Grass.

Live demo: https://walking-challenge-ai.vercel.app

How it works

Choose walking time (10 to 60 min), place (park, city, college, neighborhood) and difficulty.
An open-weight model (Qwen2.5 Instruct) runs in your browser with Transformers.js and writes your challenges.
If the model output is unusable, the app falls back to built-in challenges.
Walk, tick off the challenges, finish.

Run locally

npm install
npm run dev

Open https://walking-challenge-ai.vercel.app in Chrome or Edge. The first run downloads the model (about 1.2 GB), then it is cached by the browser.

Tech

React, Vite, Tailwind CSS, Transformers.js (WebGPU or WASM).

Open source

The model is one line in src/ai.js. Swap it for…

View on GitHub

How I Built It

Frontend: React, Vite and Tailwind CSS
AI: an open-weight Qwen2.5 Instruct model running directly in the browser with Transformers.js (WebGPU when available, WASM otherwise)
Safety net: a hand-written bank of challenges, so the app never breaks

The app builds a prompt from the walk time, place and difficulty and sends it to the model running locally in the browser. It then validates the output. If the model returns something unusable, the app falls back to the built-in challenges, so the walker always gets a working list.

What I learned: my first attempt used a 0.5B model, and it simply echoed my prompt back instead of following it. Small models are unpredictable when you ask for structured output. That is why the app checks the model's output before showing it, and why I moved to a larger open model. Making small-model output more reliable is the next thing I want to improve.

Why Does Open Innovation Matter?

Runs locally, no server: after a one-time model download, everything happens in the browser. There is no API key, no backend and no cost per request.
Privacy: the walker's time, place and activity never leave their device. That matters for an app about where people physically go.
Swappable model: the model is a single line in the code. Anyone can replace it with a smaller, bigger or fine-tuned one, for example one tuned for their own city or campus.
Free to run and fork: a student can host this for free and adapt it to their own surroundings, which is hard to do with a closed API.

Open models made it possible to build this without any budget, and that is exactly the kind of project that gets people outside.

CyberSafe Buddy: A Scam Message Checker Built on My Phone

Tamim Ts1 — Sun, 04 Oct 2026 15:18:10 +0000

This is a submission for the Hacktoberfest Weekend Challenge: Build for a Friend

What I Built

CyberSafe Buddy is a small web tool where you paste a suspicious SMS or WhatsApp message and get a risk level (Low / Medium / High), the red flags found, and a simple Hinglish tip on what to do next. I built it for people like my family and friends, who often receive fake prize, KYC and job messages on WhatsApp. I tested it myself on typical scam messages.

Demo

Try it here: https://huggingface.co/spaces/Tamsec/cybersafe-buddy

Note: the first load takes 1-2 minutes while the open-weight model downloads into your browser. Wait for "AI model ready ✅".

Example 1: a scam message
Input: Congratulations! You won ₹50,000. Click bit.ly/xyz and enter OTP to claim prize
Result: 🚨 Risk: High
Red flags: prize claim, OTP request, suspicious link
Advice: Don't open the link, don't share the OTP, block and report the message.

Example 2: a normal message
Input: Kal college 10 baje hai.
Result: ✅ Risk: Low
Red flags: none found

Code

The whole app is one index.html file in the Space (Files tab).
Link: https://huggingface.co/spaces/Tamsec/cybersafe-buddy/tree/main

How I Built It

Built entirely from my phone as a Hugging Face Static Space (Gradio Spaces now need a paid plan).
A rules engine (OTP requests, prize claims, urgency, suspicious links, fake job offers) decides the risk level.
An open-weight model, Google FLAN-T5 (small), runs in the browser via Transformers.js and gives a yes/no "second opinion".
My first version asked the model for a written explanation. It produced nonsense, so I limited it to a short yes/no question and let the rules make the final decision.
Limits: it understands English and Roman Hinglish, not Hindi/Urdu script, and it is a helper, not a guarantee.

Why Does Open Innovation Matter?

Because the model is open-weight and runs in the browser, there is no API key, no cost, and the message never leaves the user's phone. That matters for a privacy-sensitive tool, and I can swap in a better open model later.

hello everyone i'm new to hare

Tamim Ts1 — Thu, 01 Oct 2026 17:08:58 +0000

hello eeryone !!

Tamim Ts1 — Thu, 01 Oct 2026 16:54:18 +0000