From a Backyard Bell Pepper Experiment to Two Buildathon Awards: Our 24-Hour Journey with Twinly

Sometimes the most unexpected journeys begin with a simple question.

"Shall we go for this?"

When the announcement for the Cursor 24-Hour Buildathon Colombo appeared, neither of us had a grand plan. We weren't chasing trophies, prizes, or recognition. We simply saw an opportunity to challenge ourselves, build something together, and spend 24 hours doing what we genuinely love.

Looking back now, it's still hard to believe where that decision led us.

What started as a leap of faith eventually became Twinly, an AI-powered Plant Digital Twin Platform, and earned us both the Google Gemini Track Winner Award and the Most Intelligent Award powered by HeyMilo AI.

But the awards are only a small part of the story.

The real story is everything that happened during those 24 unforgettable hours.

Walking Into the Unknown

The Cursor Buildathon Colombo, organized by Team TechTalk360, brought together builders, innovators, and creators under one roof for a single challenge: transform an idea into reality within 24 hours.

The atmosphere inside the Royal MAS Arena was unlike anything we had experienced before. Everywhere you looked, people were brainstorming, designing, coding, debugging, and turning ambitious ideas into working products. There was an energy in the room that was impossible to ignore.

For both of us, attending the event felt like stepping outside our comfort zones.

As a computer science undergraduate, Amandi was familiar with building software through structured processes, carefully planned architectures, and traditional development workflows. Most projects involved working extensively with Java, Spring Boot, and well-defined engineering practices. A 24-hour AI buildathon was something entirely different. There was no time for overthinking, lengthy planning, or perfect architecture. The challenge demanded rapid experimentation, fast decision-making, and learning on the fly. To make things even more interesting, this was her very first experience using Cursor. Building the core backend, integrating AI capabilities, and adapting to a completely different style of development became an intense but rewarding challenge.

For Thamindu, the leap was just as significant. This was his very first buildathon. As a mechanical engineering student, software hackathons were not exactly the environments he was used to. Yet anyone who knows him knows that he has always been drawn toward the intersection of hardware, electronics, AI, and real-world problem-solving. In many ways, he considers himself an outlier within his academic discipline, not because of engineering itself, but because of his constant curiosity about building intelligent systems, experimenting with embedded technologies, and bringing physical and digital worlds together.

When the idea of participating first came up, there was understandable hesitation. Would a software-focused buildathon really be the right place? Could a team consisting of a computer science student and a mechanical engineering student compete alongside experienced builders?

The honest answer was that we had no idea. But curiosity won. So we packed our laptops, showed up at the venue, and decided to see what we could create.

The Idea That Started in a Backyard

Long before the buildathon, Twinly existed in a much smaller form.

It began as a personal passion project.

Thamindu had been experimenting with growing bell peppers in his backyard while exploring how basic IoT sensors could be used to monitor crop conditions. The project wasn't intended to become a startup or a competition entry. It was simply an opportunity to learn, experiment, and understand how technology could improve decision-making in agriculture.

The more we discussed the idea, the more we realized something interesting. Many farming challenges stem from a lack of visibility. Farmers often have to make important decisions based on limited information, reacting to problems only after they become visible.

What if every plant could have a digital representation of itself? What if physical crop conditions could be translated into meaningful insights, predictions, and guidance?

That simple thought became the foundation of Twinly.

When the buildathon began, we saw an opportunity to take that small backyard experiment and reimagine it on a much larger scale.

Building Twinly

Over the next 24 hours, Twinly transformed from an idea into a working platform.

At its core, Twinly is an AI-Powered Plant Digital Twin Platform. It combines deep plant analysis, predictive intelligence, and actionable daily guidance to create a smarter farming experience. The platform aims to help users understand what that data means and what actions should be taken next.

While the concept itself was exciting, building it within a single day was another challenge entirely.

The workload naturally split across our strengths. Amandi focused heavily on the core technology stack, backend implementation, and AI integration. Much of the work involved rapidly learning, adapting, and connecting different technologies together under intense time pressure.

Meanwhile, Thamindu led the design direction of the platform, creating the distinctive user interface and contributing to frontend development. He wanted Twinly to feel approachable and intuitive rather than overwhelming, ensuring that users could easily understand the information being presented.

Although we each had different responsibilities, the reality of a buildathon is that boundaries quickly disappear. Ideas were constantly exchanged, problems were solved together, and features evolved through discussion. The product became a reflection of both our perspectives.

Figure 1: Twinly – AI-powered Plant Digital Twin Platform.

Twenty-Four Hours That Felt Like Minutes

One of the most memorable parts of the experience was how quickly time seemed to disappear.

What felt like a few hours was suddenly midnight. Then sunrise. Then presentation time.

The entire event became a blur of coding, designing, testing, troubleshooting, refining, and occasionally wondering whether a feature would actually work moments before a demo.

Sleep wasn't part of the plan. Neither was comfort. But surprisingly, neither mattered.

There is something special about being surrounded by hundreds of people who are all equally obsessed with bringing ideas to life. The collective energy inside the venue created an environment where imagination and execution moved at the same speed. Every conversation sparked a new possibility, every challenge became an opportunity to learn, and every small success felt incredibly rewarding.

By the time Twinly was ready to be presented, we were exhausted but proud. Not because we thought we had built the best project in the room, but because we had managed to bring an idea we genuinely cared about to life within 24 hours.

For us, that already felt like a win.

The Moment We Never Expected

As the judging process unfolded, we genuinely had no expectations.

We had come to learn, experiment, and have fun. Winning was never part of the plan. 

So when Twinly began receiving recognition, it caught us completely by surprise.

By the end of the event, Twinly had been awarded the following:

🏆 Google Gemini Track Winner Award

🏆 Most Intelligent Award (Powered by HeyMilo AI)

Even now, it's difficult to fully describe that moment. Not because of the trophies themselves, but because of what they represented.

A backyard experiment had evolved into an award-winning platform. An idea that started from curiosity had resonated with industry professionals and judges. A decision made without expectations had opened doors we never anticipated.

The recognition validated something we had quietly believed throughout the buildathon: meaningful innovation can come from anywhere when passion, curiosity, and execution come together.

While the awards were unforgettable, the greatest outcome of the buildathon wasn't the recognition. It was the motivation that followed. The experience showed us that ideas don't need to start big. They don't need perfect plans. They don't need certainty.

Sometimes they simply need people willing to take a chance and start building.

For Thamindu, it transformed a personal farming experiment into something with real potential. For Amandi, it reinforced the excitement of stepping beyond familiar technologies and embracing new challenges. For both of us, it strengthened our belief in Twinly and what it could eventually become.

What was originally built within 24 hours is now something we genuinely want to continue developing and scaling into a real-world product.

A Thank You

Experiences like this are only possible because of the communities that create them. We would like to sincerely thank Team TechTalk360, Cursor, the organizers, mentors, judges, partners, volunteers, and everyone who contributed to making the Cursor 24-Hour Buildathon Colombo such a memorable experience.

More importantly, thank you for creating a space where people are encouraged to experiment, take risks, and turn ideas into reality. We arrived with nothing more than an idea inspired by a few bell pepper plants and a desire to challenge ourselves. Twenty-four hours later, we walked away with Twinly, two awards, countless lessons, and a renewed excitement for building.

And for us, that is where the real journey begins.