Wander

Inspiration

We all know the feeling of opening Instagram, TikTok, or YouTube just for a few minutes, only to look up and realize an hour has passed. From our own experiences, we saw how easy it is to fall into this vicious cycle where the only satisfaction we get is through our phones. These platforms are built to keep us scrolling, creating a system where our free time gets consumed instead of enjoyed. We wanted to create something that helps people break that cycle and find fun in the little things in life.

What it does

Wander connects to your calendar to find pockets of free time in your day. It uses your interests and available time to recommend personalized activities that fit your schedule. Once you choose an activity, Wander encourages you to put social media aside and commit to spending that time offline. If you leave the app during your session, the session is interrupted and the time is not counted as reclaimed. Every session is then recorded, showing you how much time you spent not scrolling throughout the week!

How we built it

We built Wander as a full-stack web app using React and TypeScript for the frontend and FastAPI with Python for the backend. We integrated Google Calendar to understand a user's schedule, Supabase for storing account information and preferences, and the Groq API to generate personalized activity recommendations which is paired with the OpenWeather API to take weather into account. We also used browser visibility detection to recognize when a user leaves an active session.

Challenges we ran into

One of our biggest challenges was creating accountability without controlling the user's phone or blocking other apps. We had to find a way to encourage users to stay committed and only rewarding successful sessions. That's when we came up with the idea of detecting when the user leaves the app which would count as an invalid session. Therefore they would do the activity while their phone is still on the app to ensure they do not begin scrolling.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are proud of the fact that we were able to produce a functional demo, not something that is merely a frontend but instead something with actual logic happening in the backend. This allowed our idea to actually come to life and really shows how an idea like this can be implemented from a technological standpoint.

What we learned

We gained a lot of experience in using various development tools such as AI to assist throughout the process, something we never experimented with much before. We additionally experienced integrating APIs, managing data, and building a product under a tight hackathon deadline. Most importantly, we learned that helping people disconnect does not have to mean taking technology away. Sometimes, it is about giving people a better reason to put it down.

What's next for Wander

We hope to expand this project in the future by making Wander available as a mobile app, allowing it to provide stronger services. We also want to incorporate location for better activity recommendations so Wander can suggest things that fit not only your schedule and interests, but also the world around you.

Built With

• css
• fastapi
• google-calendar
• groq
• openweather
• pytest
• python
• react
• supabase
• typescript
• uvicorn
• vite