TouchGrass AI — I Built an AI Whose Only Goal Is to Get You Away From the Computer

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

What I Built

TouchGrass AI is an open-source AI experiment designed to solve an unusual problem: getting people to stop using AI and go outside.

You tell it three things — how much time you have, your energy level, and what you're into. Gemma generates a personalized outdoor mission and sends you out the door. When you come back, you reflect on what you found.

The core loop:

The screen is intentionally the shortest part of the experience. No feeds, no notifications, no reason to stay. Just a mission and a door.

It's for anyone who spends too much time on a screen — which, if you're reading this, is probably you.

Demo

The app has 4 screens:

Step	What happens
1. Preferences	Pick your time (15m → 2h+), energy (Low/Medium/High), and interest (Nature, Fitness, Explore, Photo, Surprise)
2. AI Mission	Gemma generates a title, one-sentence scene-setter, and 3 specific tasks
3. Go outside	A minimal screen that just says: go
4. Reflect	Two text fields — what did you find, how did it go

🔗 GitHub: https://github.com/thedarkking01/TouchGrass-AI

Code

thedarkking01 / TouchGrass-AI

an AI that gives you a small outdoor mission based on your available time, energy, interests, and environment.

🌱 TouchGrass AI

An open-source AI experiment designed to solve an unusual problem: getting people to stop using AI and go outside.

Built for the Hacktoberfest Open-Source AI Challenge: Week 1 — Theme: Touch Grass 🌿

---

What is it?

TouchGrass AI generates personalized outdoor missions using an open-weight AI model. You tell it how much time you have, your energy level, and what you're into — it gives you a mission and sends you outside.

The core loop:

Tell TouchGrass what you have
        ↓
   AI creates a mission
        ↓
    Go outside
        ↓
  Come back & reflect

The goal is for the screen to be the shortest part of the experience.

---

Demo

Step	Screen
1. Pick your preferences	Time · Energy · Interest
2. Get your AI mission	Title · Description · 3 tasks
3. Go outside	Timer screen
4. Come back & reflect	Journal your adventure

---

Tech Stack

Layer	Tech

…

View on GitHub

How I Built It

Stack:

• Frontend: React + Vite — 4 screens, no router, minimal state
• Backend: FastAPI (Python) — one POST endpoint /generate-mission
• AI: Gemma via Google AI Studio (free tier)
• Model: gemini-3.8-flash (Gemma family, open-weight)

The AI prompt is the core of the project — a structured prompt that tells the model exactly what JSON format to return:

python
PROMPT_TEMPLATE = """
You are TouchGrass AI. Your only job is to get people off their screens and outside.

Generate a personalized outdoor mission for someone with these preferences:
- Available time: {time}
- Energy level: {energy}
- Interest: {interest}

Respond ONLY with a valid JSON object in this exact format:
{
  "title": "short catchy mission name",
  "description": "one sentence setting the scene",
  "tasks": ["task 1", "task 2", "task 3"]
}
"""