LoopOut: One 5-Minute Offline Activity to Break the Screen Loop

Vaidehi Dubey — Mon, 12 Oct 2026 06:14:56 +0000

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

What I Built

LoopOut is an AI-powered web app designed to help people step away from their screens and reconnect with the world around them.

When we feel tired, stressed, or caught in an endless scrolling loop, another productivity app isn't always the answer. Sometimes, we need a simple nudge to put our phones or laptops down and do something in the real world.

That's the idea behind LoopOut.

Users describe how they're feeling and, where supported, choose an environment or activity preference. LoopOut then suggests a short, personalized offline activity designed to take around five minutes.

The goal isn't to keep users engaged with another digital platform. It's to give them a reason to leave it.

Less scrolling. More living.

Demo

Try LoopOut here: Launch LoopOut

Code

View LoopOut on GitHub

Feedbacks are welcome.

How I Built It

LoopOut combines a modern web frontend with a Python backend and an AI-powered activity-generation workflow.

Technology Stack

Frontend: React, Vite, TypeScript, and Tailwind CSS
Backend: Python and FastAPI
AI integration: An open-weight language model accessed through Groq's API
Deployment: Render

The frontend provides the user experience, while the backend handles requests and generates activity suggestions using the AI integration.

The application is designed around a deliberately short interaction: describe how you feel, receive a suggestion, and take the next step offline.

Where the configured fallback is available, curated activities can also provide suggestions when AI generation is unavailable.

I wanted the technology to serve a clear purpose rather than add unnecessary complexity. Instead of an infinite feed, notifications, or engagement loops, LoopOut focuses on helping users find one useful activity and move on.

Why Does Open Innovation Matter?

AI should support the experience, not become the experience.

Open-weight models give developers more flexibility to experiment with AI-powered applications, evaluate different models, and adapt their implementations to specific use cases. They also make it easier to explore alternatives instead of designing an application around a single model provider.

Using an OpenAI-compatible API through Groq provides a convenient way to integrate model inference into the application.

LoopOut is not entirely offline: AI-generated suggestions depend on an external API and an internet connection. However, curated fallback activities can help preserve the core experience when AI generation is unavailable.

For me, open innovation is about making experimentation accessible and giving developers the freedom to build useful tools around their own ideas.

What I Learned

Building LoopOut helped me explore a different approach to AI product design.

Many digital products are designed to maximize engagement and keep people on their screens. LoopOut asks a different question:

What if an app's success meant helping someone stop using it?

That question shaped the project's central design decision: keep the interaction brief, make the suggestion actionable, and encourage the user to do something beyond the screen.

There is still plenty to improve, including testing suggestions with more users, refining personalization, and making activities more relevant to different moods and environments.

For now, LoopOut is an experiment in using AI to encourage healthier digital habits—one small offline activity at a time.

Prize Categories

Potential category: Best Use of Render. LoopOut is deployed on Render, which hosts the application.

Try It and Share Your Feedback

Try LoopOut, choose an activity, and take a short break from your screen.

I'd appreciate feedback on the suggestions, the user experience, and how the project could make offline breaks more useful.

Try LoopOut · Explore the source code

MicroStep Anchor: One Next Step, When Everything Feels Like Too Much

Vaidehi Dubey — Sun, 04 Oct 2026 21:47:36 +0000

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

What I Built

MicroStep Anchor is an AI-powered action-planning tool I built for a friend who always has a lot she wants to learn and accomplish, but finds it hard to finish everything in time.

She might be working on a course, practicing coding, reading, solving a daily chess puzzle, keeping up with language learning hobby, or handling everyday responsibilities. The problem isn't a lack of motivation or things to do — it's deciding what deserves attention right now. With so many things competing for her attention, it becomes easy to get overwhelmed, lose time to quick distractions like TikTok or Reels, and at the end of the day feeling like nothing important was actually finished.

MicroStep Anchor takes her tasks, prioritizes them using urgency and importance, and gives her one clear, meaningful next step instead of another overwhelming list.

Demo

Live: https://microstep-anchor.onrender.com

Code

GitHub: https://github.com/cyber-scribe/microStepAnchor

How I Built It

The frontend uses React + Vite, with a FastAPI backend.

For the AI layer, I used the open-weight GPT-OSS-20B model through Groq's API.

The application handles task identity and prioritization, while the model turns each task into task-specific execution steps without inventing context the user didn't provide.

Tasks are prioritized using an urgency-and-importance model inspired by the Eisenhower Matrix, before the AI turns them into task-specific execution steps.

The AI provider is kept behind an adapter so the project can remain provider-independent.

Why Does Open Innovation Matter?

Open-weight models made it possible to experiment with AI as part of the actual product workflow rather than simply adding a chatbot.

It also lets the AI layer remain replaceable while the product stays focused on the real problem.

For this project, open innovation meant having the freedom to build around a real need and experiment with how AI can genuinely remove friction.

Prize Categories

Best Use of Render

MicroStep Anchor is deployed on Render, with the FastAPI backend running as a web service and the React frontend deployed as a static site.

DEV Community: Vaidehi Dubey

LoopOut: One 5-Minute Offline Activity to Break the Screen Loop

What I Built

Demo

Code

How I Built It

Technology Stack

Why Does Open Innovation Matter?

What I Learned

Prize Categories

Try It and Share Your Feedback

MicroStep Anchor: One Next Step, When Everything Feels Like Too Much

What I Built

Demo

Code

How I Built It

Why Does Open Innovation Matter?

Prize Categories

Best Use of Render