Congrats to the Hacktoberfest Open-Source AI Challenge: Touch Grass Winners!

We are so excited to announce the winners of the Hacktoberfest Open-Source AI Challenge: Touch...

We are so excited to announce the winners of the Hacktoberfest Open-Source AI Challenge: Touch Grass!

It was another week of record-breaking turnout, topping last week's Hacktoberfest Weekend Challenge. Thank you all for helping us make these challenges such a success.

Our Touch Grass theme asked you to build something with open-source AI at its core that gets people off the screen and into the world, and you delivered. We saw a laptop that sends you outside the moment the power cuts out, a field app that turns a walk into an investigation where you go out with a question and come back with evidence, a kids' plant treasure hunt that will never let poison ivy count as a win, and more than a few apps whose whole goal was to get you to put them down. Many of you took your projects outside and told us how it went, which made reviewing your builds a blast.

Thank you to everyone who participated. Your builds made a strong case for why open innovation matters, from models running locally with no signal to tools that keep your data on your own device.

Now, let's celebrate our winners!

🎉 Congratulations To…

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Overall Winner

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Featured Category Winners

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Best Use of Render

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Best Use of TabPFN

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Best Use of Tinker

{% embed https://dev.to/soumyadeepdey/i-distilled-a-397b-model-into-a-4b-one-for-160-it-now-catches-28-of-33-park-alerts-that-should-bic %}

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Best Use of Arduino

{% embed https://dev.to/utsavbhattarai007/i-won-an-arduino-uno-q-at-a-hack-day-now-im-building-a-device-to-help-me-touch-grass-k68 %}

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Best Use of DigitalOcean

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Best Use of Gemma

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Partner Category Winners

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Best Use of Backboard

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Best Use of ElevenLabs

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Best Use of Entire

{% embed https://dev.to/scs0209/should-i-go-out-a-local-gemma-agent-that-picks-one-outdoor-plan-then-tells-you-to-put-your-phone-5hbh %}

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Best Use of GitHub Copilot

{% embed https://dev.to/yuvan_shankar/touch-grass-garden-a-plant-tracker-that-only-counts-the-days-you-went-outside-10na %}

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Best Use of Mastra

{% embed https://dev.to/asiboy6789/your-photo-picks-the-next-street-a-walking-mystery-on-open-weight-gemma-33od %}

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Best Use of MongoDB Atlas

{% embed https://dev.to/aryan_sethi_afdba87340e96/lumiroam-a-tour-guide-that-tells-you-where-to-stand-which-lens-to-use-and-when-the-light-is-right-1i1h %}

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Best Use of Sentry Agent Tracing

{% embed https://dev.to/antoniahp/i-asked-gemma-to-turn-im-too-tired-into-glad-i-went-out-fi1 %}

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Best Use of SerpApi

{% embed https://dev.to/nikithakls17sys/i-made-walking-a-game-quests-a-diary-and-an-app-that-judges-your-screen-time-2fii %}

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Best Use of Temporal

{% embed https://dev.to/codersacademy006/butterflies-dont-take-weekends-off-40000-pune-sightings-and-a-forecast-that-fell-apart-when-i-1g4 %}

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Best Use of Tiger Data

{% embed https://dev.to/anishisbusy/nice-out-an-app-that-learns-your-kind-of-nice-weather-then-tells-you-to-go-outside-58bg %}

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Prizes

Our overall winner will receive:

• $250 USD
• DEV++ Membership
• Exclusive DEV badge

Our six featured category winners will each receive:

• $200 USD
• Exclusive DEV badge

Our ten partner category winners will each receive:

• $100 USD
• Exclusive DEV badge

All participants with a valid submission will receive a completion badge.

A huge thank you to our partners for making these prizes possible!

What's Next?

Hacktoberfest isn't over yet! Week 2: Side Hustle is happening now, and there's still time to enter:

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Week 3 kicks off Monday, October 19, and Week 4 follows on Monday, October 26. Every challenge is a fresh start, so make sure to register so you don't miss an update:

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See you next week 💚