Project Touch Grass
- What if there’s a product with real grass that you can send your friends, along with a jovial “touch grass!”
- What if there exists an actual, real world product that can act as eco-attestation of the time you spend outdoors?
- What is the 2024 version of a chia pet phenomenon?!
Introducing….Project Touch Grass!
Technical challenges
- Low shipping costs
- Environmentally friendly (low/no plastic use)
- Grass that will grow in low amount of light exposure
- Not messy for the user
Experiments
- “lawn repair” mixes - received and started 2024-03-21
- Testing conditions
- Indoors - placed on desk, no sunlight
- Outdoors - placed in patio, medium sunlight
- Pros:
- Mix theoretically grows within 5 days
- Convenient
- Cons:
- CHEMICAL FERTILIZER…which I didn’t realize till I received it oops, has a smell…
- A bit messy (loose crumbs), expands (!!) will require some form of containment
- hemp mats + purple radish sprouts
- Potential pros: not as messy
- Potential cons: not sure if sunlight is required or if it actually prefers darkness?
Design Considerations
- Linked to online community, e.g. Warpcast, X, etc.
- Luxurious connotations
- Flat and light for shipping
- Easy to grow (hence leaning towards hemp mats b/c only 1 watering needed)
- Physical health
- “Proprietary” or “exclusive” mix of microgreen seeds for nutritional balance or design reasons
- Microgreens are generally good for you? Much safer if cooked
- Mental health
- “Looking after” something that requires the same care as yourself
- Hydrating
- Sunlight
- Talk to it (wouldn’t it be neat if there’s a GPT for the plant that replies you?)
- Spiritual health
- Eco / rewilding
- Literally touch grass
Use case examples
- Living decoration
- You know what you need next to a candle?! A patch of grass for you to touch and remind you of the outside.
- Eco-attestation
- Imagine if the hemp mat is cut to the size/shape of a hat/cap bill, so the user has to go outside to grow the grass
- Then use something like POIDH to show off grass growth, which then redeems an NFT / attestation
Inspiration
This is my friend’s ex-coworker’s business selling “moss balls” as pets
Who doesn’t want a moss ball with a cowboy hat?!
I am a little inspired by this story but I think it’s a very “scissor” imagery hahaha
