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jhusk003
jhusk003

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Fresh Air Writing Challenge Submission

#mlhacks #devchallenge #hackathon #ai

This is a submission for the MLH x DEV Writing Challenge

What I Built

I built Fresh Air, an AI-powered application with a simple idea behind it: Get out your feelings and get outside.

I wanted to explore how AI could encourage people to do things away from their screens instead of giving them another reason to stay online. Fresh Air generates personalized outdoor missions, suggests alternative activities, translates instructions, and lets users record completed missions in a journal. The goal is to make it easier to take a break, try something new, and reconnect with the world around you.

I built the application using Python and Streamlit, with Ollama powering mission generation, MongoDB Atlas supporting persistent journal data, SerpApi supporting information retrieval, and ElevenLabs providing voice narration.

Demo

The demo walks through the main features, including generating missions, exploring alternatives, translating instructions, and tracking completed activities.

Partner Technologies

I used several technologies to bring Fresh Air together. MongoDB Atlas supports persistent journal data, ElevenLabs provides AI-generated voice narration, and SerpApi supports information retrieval. Ollama runs a language model that helps generate mission ideas, while Python and Streamlit power the application's logic and interface.

Getting these technologies to work together was one of the biggest challenges. I had to troubleshoot configurations, test integrations, and adjust features to make the experience as straightforward as possible. This taught me that building an AI application involves more than getting a model to generate text; the different components need to work together to solve a real problem.

Hackathon Experience

Building Fresh Air gave me the opportunity to take an idea I cared about and turn it into something people could interact with. I wanted to explore a practical use of AI that encourages people to spend less time online and more time engaging with their surroundings.

The process pushed me to think about why each feature mattered, how different technologies could support the same goal, and how to keep going when things didn't work as expected. My biggest takeaway is that AI doesn't always need to keep people engaged with technology. Sometimes, it can help them step away from it.

Fresh Air is my reminder that sometimes we need to get out of our heads, get outside, and reconnect with the world beyond the screen.

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