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I hosted HammerWars 2025 last November , Purdue’s biggest programming contest with 100+ participants from Purdue WL, Indy and UIUC and I’ve been thinking about recording the process long before the event. I think it’s fair to say this is my highest-impact work to date, and this post could be helpful for organizers in similar straits. It’s also for my own reflection.

Though I take responsibility for almost all the planning, this event wouldn’t have happened without Brijesh Patel, Mikah Kainen, Peter Jin, Munir Kudrati-Plummer, Aaryan Prakash, Arvind Ramaswami, Matthew Li and the members of the CPU .

For a long time, I had zero social life. Throughout high school, I had nobody I was close enough to to meet outside of school. Being the withdrawn nerd I was, instead of actively trying to make friends, I wanted to start a CS club. That never happened.

Yet, there was still a shining highlight which solidified as my best high school memory: attending CHMMC . More than the actual mathematical content, I recall the incredible ambience: the bright building and cheerful atmosphere during the team competition, exploring campus with acquaintances during the scavenger hunt, discussing the results outside the Beckman auditorium.

Maybe this is how much fun people have at parties? I would not know. From my limited perspective, academic competitions perfectly balance the purpose of an addictive video game, the social environment of a party and the dopamine hits from solving hard problems.

I fantasized about being able to host an event at a comparable scale my freshman year. I joined the CPU and basically took it over, becoming president for the next two years. In the spring of my sophomore year, I organized