Challenge Summary
The Parks and Rec Hackathon is a week-long creative sprint to build a new digital homepage for the parks in your hometown while leveraging AI to do it.
This isn’t a technical competition. It’s a creative one. You can build a map, a zine, a chatbot, a dreamy single-page site, or something that doesn’t even look like a directory at all. The challenge on the table is to take a somewhat narrow scope and see how far you can push it creatively. There aren’t many specific requirements, so use this to shine a light on the parks that make your city feel alive.
Our goal with this challenge is to give you space to explore, experiment, and share your vision. Use the tools that excite you. Follow the threads that inspire you. Make something you’re proud of — and surprise yourself along the way.
Inspiration
There’s no right way to do this. Your “directory” could be functional, expressive, absurd, or all of the above. Below are some ideas to spark your thinking — but feel free to ignore them completely and make something that only you could make.
You might build…
- A minimalist web app that lists your city’s parks with AI-generated photography
- A vintage 90s-style site with pixel art and fake park reviews
- A chatbot that speaks like a poetic park ranger
- A mobile app with park trail maps, a “catch ‘em all” feature for local plants and wildlife, and an AI park ranger to guide you on a narrated walk
- A dreamy photo zine with DALL·E images and short, AI-generated haikus
- A 3D map with custom icons and ambient soundscapes
- A searchable directory of local parks by mood (“quiet,” “sunny,” “best for dog naps”)
- A print-on-demand coffee table book of the most beautiful parks you’ve never heard of
If you’re using AI for visuals, try Midjourney, DALL·E, Runway, or custom-trained models. For websites and apps, tools like Vercel, Supabase, and GPT-4 can get you far. But we’re tool-agnostic — whatever helps bring your idea to life is fair game.
