This is a submission for the Hacktoberfest Open-Source AI Challenge Week 1: Touch Grass.[https://dev.to/challenges/hacktoberfest-week1-2026-10-05]
What I Built
I built Human-Powered Treasure Hunt, an AI-powered exploration app designed to get people away from their screens and out into the real world.
Instead of spending hours scrolling through content, users can discover interesting places, explore local history, uncover lesser-known attractions, and turn real-world discoveries into interactive treasure hunts.
The idea is simple: AI should be a guide to the world outside your screen, not another reason to stay glued to it.
The app is designed around a discovery-driven experience, where users can:
🔎 Discover interesting places and lesser-known local stories.
🧭 Use real-world locations as the starting point for treasure hunts.
🗺️ Navigate to places using Google Maps.
🕵️ Use a Google Lens-assisted workflow to investigate objects and clues.
🤖 Use AI-assisted research to help turn discoveries into engaging challenges.
The goal is to encourage curiosity, exploration, and learning through experiences in the physical world.
Demo
🌐 Try the live app: https://human-powered-treasure-hunt.ai.studio/
The application is deployed and accessible online.
Code
GitHub repository: [https://github.com/shanaldo7/human-powered-treasure-hunt]
The live demo is available now. I still need to add my public source-code repository link here so others can explore the implementation and contribute.
How I Built It
I built Human-Powered Treasure Hunt using Google AI Studio's app-building workflow and deployed it to Google Cloud Run.
The application combines a web-based interface with AI-assisted discovery and real-world navigation. Its intended workflow connects research, clues, and physical exploration rather than keeping the entire experience inside a chat window.
Key components include:
AI-assisted discovery: Helps transform research and interesting findings into hunt ideas and clues.
Live web research: Uses a search integration to help find relevant information and sources.
Google Maps: Connects discoveries to real-world locations and navigation.
Google Lens-assisted discovery: Lets users investigate objects and submit their findings for evaluation.
React and a production server: Power the application interface and backend routes.
Google Cloud Run: Hosts the deployed application.
I also worked through a production deployment issue involving frontend asset paths, verified the production build and application routes, and republished the application successfully.
Why Does Open Innovation Matter?
Many people spend hours exploring the digital world but rarely discover the interesting places, hidden histories, and local stories around them.
Human-Powered Treasure Hunt addresses this by using AI to turn online research into real-world exploration. Open innovation makes this approach more accessible by allowing developers to combine AI, mapping tools, and community-driven data sources to create new ways for people to learn and explore.
By making it possible to extend the app with new research sources, locations, and types of clues, open innovation can help more communities discover the world around them.
The goal is simple: use AI to help people spend less time passively scrolling and more time actively exploring.
Prize Categories
I am submitting this project for the Touch Grass challenge theme.
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