Inspiration
We were inspired a lot by graceavery's macbook touchbar pet as well as the chatgpt pet. We wanted something similar to the gpt pet however with the functionality of being a much more engaging more companionlike agent that can help you feel less stressed with everyday life.
What it does
Churro is a red panda that lives in the corner of your Mac desktop. It idles around and does random stuff as you work just like a real pet would. Move your cursor nearby and it glances over while continuing its activity. You can drag it to another spot or send it a short message and read its reply in a little bubble. It’s designed for the moments when you want a quick break or some quiet company during a long screen session.
How we built it
We built the macOS app with Electron, Node.js, JavaScript, HTML, and CSS. Churro’s everyday behavior runs locally, and the app uses Google’s Gemini API to generate chat replies with an API key configured on the user’s device. We used OpenAI to help create the pixel-art animations and Base44 to build the project website.
Challenges we ran into
Originally this track was supposed to include exa for web browsing and this companion would be able to tell stories and gather information for you. Also we spent a lot of time brainstorming and planning on how we would integrate exa only to find out we wouldn't be using it around 8 hours in. With the changes to the prompt, we had to pivot a lot towards the comfort side and turn it more into a cozy chatbot. The animations were another challenge. Getting one good image was much easier than getting a sequence where Churro’s proportions, colors, and position stayed consistent. We iterated on our prompts and cleaned up frames until Churro looked dynamic and the animations looked nice.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
We're really proud that we were able to deploy our own model that is installable working desktop app. When we started, we were unsure if we could make it polished enough to the point where it was useable by the end of the 24 hours. However, while its not perfect, since we have never created a working desktop pet, I think it was a pretty well done job by us two.
What we learned
We learned how to write more precise prompts for animation, especially when several frames need to look like they belong together. We also got to explore different AI tools through the hackathon workshops and learned how much of Churro’s personality comes from small details, like the timing of a glance or the pause before a nap.
What's next for Churro
We are currently working on integrating long term memory in addition to the short term memory. This would allow each session to have continuity and make the pet seem even more present. Another idea is letting Churro notice what you’re doing on screen and occasionally chime in with a small observation or joke, the way a friend sitting nearby might.
