Root Bound touch grass to make the blob happy

A developer built Rootbound: Solitary Sprouts, a 3D web app that pairs introverts with a floating gourd companion that grows when users complete solo outdoor activities. The app uses Next.js, Tailwind CSS, and Three.js for the interactive companion, open-weight vision models such as Gemma on a backend API route to verify uploaded plant photos and award XP, and MongoDB Atlas for player levels, sprite health, and live leaderboard scores.

This is a submission for the Hacktoberfest Open-Source AI Challenge Week 1: Touch Grass https://dev.to/challenges/hacktoberfest-week1-2026-10-05 I built Rootbound: Solitary Sprouts ,it is a cozy, low-pressure 3D web app made specifically for introverts who want to get outdoors without social anxiety cause I'm an introvert myself It pairs you with a floating 3D Gourd/Blob companion that needs real-world nature to grow. To keep your blob happy, you step outside alone and complete peaceful, solo outdoor dares like finding moss or river stones , play a nature-only word chain game, spin a 3D nature match minigame, or snap a photo of a real houseplant or garden sapling to heal your sprite Frontend & 3D Interactive UI: Built using Next.js App Router , Tailwind CSS, and Three.js @react-three/fiber & @react-three/drei for the interactive floating 3D companion that distorts and glows when you complete quests. Open-Source AI Vision: Uses open-weight vision models like Gemma on the backend API route /api/sprite to analyze uploaded plant photos, verifying foliage health and calculating XP boosts. Database Layer: MongoDB Atlas stores player levels, sprite health, and live leaderboard scores in real-time. Open innovation matters here because nature walks and outdoor activities are deeply personal. Running open-weight models locally or on lightweight open runtimes means users can verify their outdoor plant findings without uploading private location data or photos to closed corporate cloud servers. Plus, open-weight models mean zero API fees lol, allowing an offline-first companion that can run on trail walks with spotty internet N/A