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

What I Built

FloraFind & Grounded is a gamified single-page web application (SPA) designed to solve a universal developer problem: terminal fatigue, continuous debugging burn-out, and excessive screen time. Built specifically for Week 1 of the Hacktoberfest 2026 DEV Challenge ("Touch Grass"), this project turns stepping away from the desk into an interactive, rewarding outdoor quest.

🌟 Key Highlights:

  1. 🌿 "Screen-Time Detox" Quest Engine:

    • Generates real-world outdoor challenges ("Inspect Sidewalk Chlorophyll", "Locate 3-Leaf Hardware Redundancy", "Deep Canopy Sunlight Audit").
    • Category filtering (Quick 5-Min, Flora Scavenger, Deep Forest Debug).
    • Logs outdoor uptime minutes, Grass XP points, and levels upon completion.

  2. 🤖 Cloud Open Innovation AI Identifier ("FloraFind"):

    • Accepts both natural language plant descriptions and direct leaf photo uploads via camera/file picker.
    • Communicates with Google AI Studio open-weight models (Gemma 2 and Gemini Flash).
    • Compiles plants into hilarious developer-centric botanical specifications (Hardware Redundancy, Photosynthesis SLA, Developer Patch Notes).
    • Features an Interactive Percentage Loader with dynamic 6-step ticker and anti-freeze timeouts.
    • Includes an Offline Simulator Fallback mode if no API key is provided or network is offline.

  3. 📊 Outdoor Uptime & Streak Dashboard:

    • Tracks total outdoor minutes, active daily streaks, quests completed, and plant scans logged.
    • Unlockable Developer Grass Badges (Seedling Debugger, Touch Grass Protocol, Solar Streak, Quantum Photosynthesis).
    • Light & Dark mode theme engine with dynamic toggle.
    • 100% persisted locally in browser LocalStorage.

  4. 🔒 Privacy-First Client Architecture:

    • No hardcoded API keys. User keys are stored only in the browser's LocalStorage.
    • Direct HTTPS requests to Google AI Studio with zero intermediary backend servers.

Demo

🚀 Live Application Demo:

https://ujjwalgupta2021.github.io/FloraFind-and-Grounded/

Code

💻 GitHub Repository:

https://github.com/ujjwalgupta2021/FloraFind-and-Grounded

├── index.html # Main SPA layout, quest board, AI analyzer UI, theme engine & modal ├── style.css # Custom scrollbars, glassmorphism, animations & theme overrides ├── app.js # App state engine, Google AI Studio integration, AbortController timeouts └── README.md # Official DEV Challenge submission document

How I Built It

🧠 Open-Source & Open-Weight AI Architecture

This application is built around Google AI Studio's open model endpoints, featuring Google's Gemma open-weight series (gemma-2-27b-it, gemma-2-9b-it) and fast multimodal models (gemini-2.0-flash, gemini-1.5-flash).

  1. Automated Connection & Model Securer:

    • When a user inputs an API key, the app calls ModelService.ListModels (https://generativelanguage.googleapis.com/v1beta/models) to discover authorized models.
    • It runs an automated priority candidate test sweep to lock in a guaranteed 200 OK connection without requiring users to navigate complex dropdown settings.

  2. AbortController Timeout Engine:

    • Built a custom fetchWithTimeout() wrapper with an optimal 19-second master deadline and 19-second direct fetch budget.
    • Prevents browser requests from hanging indefinitely on slow or unresponsive endpoints.

  3. Frontend Stack:

    • Core: Vanilla HTML5, Modern Modular JavaScript (ES6+)
    • Styling: Tailwind CSS (Play CDN) + Vanilla CSS Glassmorphism & Keyframe Animations
    • Icons: Lucide Icons
    • State Persistence: Browser LocalStorage

Why Does Open Innovation Matter?

Open innovation and open-weight models (such as Google's Gemma family) are fundamental to the future of software development:

  1. Transparency & Sovereignty: Open-weight models give developers full visibility into model behavior and parameter architectures, removing black-box dependency on proprietary closed APIs.
  2. Client-Side Privacy Architecture: Open endpoints allow applications like FloraFind to construct direct, peer-to-endpoint calls straight from the user's browser, enabling privacy-first architectures where user keys and personal data stay client-side.
  3. Unlocking Creative Developer Tooling: Open innovation allows developers to build specialized, niche AI experiences—like compiling real-world plants into hilarious developer SLA patch notes—without prohibitive licensing or API lock-in constraints.

My Agent Session

This application was planned, architected, and built with the assistance of an autonomous agent swarm using Antigravity 2.0.

Prize Categories

  • 🏆 Grand Prize / Open Innovation Track: Best application leveraging open-weight AI models (Google Gemma / AI Studio).
  • 🌿 Touch Grass Week 1 Theme Track: Best project encouraging physical outdoor interaction, screen-time detox, and real-world exploration.

Built with 💚 for the Hacktoberfest 2026 Week 1 DEV Challenge — Go Touch Grass!