Coding Challenges | poushali@nit-silchar

💻 Weekly Challenges

Fresh problems every week to keep your skills sharp!

Current Week's Challenge

Implement LRU Cache - Design + Data Structures (Hard)
Binary Tree Level Order Traversal - BFS practice (Medium)
Valid Palindrome II - Two pointers (Easy)

Past Challenges Archive

30 Days of Code - Complete beginner track
Algo October - One algorithm daily for 31 days
Dynamic Programming December - DP mastery month

🎓 Student Assignments

Data Structures Projects

Implement a HashMap from Scratch - Hash functions + collision handling
Build a Priority Queue - Using heaps
Create a Graph Library - DFS, BFS, Dijkstra
Design a File System - Tree + command line interface

Algorithm Challenges

Sorting Algorithm Visualizer - Animate the sorting
Pathfinding Maze Solver - A* algorithm implementation
String Pattern Matching - KMP or Rabin-Karp
Maximum Flow Problem - Ford-Fulkerson

System Programming

Build Your Own malloc() - Memory allocator
Simple Shell Implementation - Process management
Multi-threaded Web Server - Concurrency
Custom Database Engine - B+ trees + buffer pool

Machine Learning Projects

Neural Network from Scratch - NumPy only!
Image Classifier - CNN implementation
Sentiment Analysis - NLP + transformers
Recommendation System - Collaborative filtering

🏆 CTF & Security Challenges

Web Security

SQL Injection Lab - Learn to prevent it
XSS Attack Scenarios - Cross-site scripting
CSRF Protection - Token implementation
Secure Authentication - JWT + bcrypt

Cryptography

Caesar Cipher Breaker - Frequency analysis
RSA Implementation - Public key crypto
Hash Collision Fun - MD5 vs SHA-256
Blockchain Basics - Build a simple chain

Reverse Engineering

Binary Analysis - Read assembly code
Crack the Password - Decompile & analyze
Buffer Overflow - Understand the vulnerability

🎮 Code Golf & Fun Challenges

Shortest Code Wins

FizzBuzz in 50 chars - Can you beat it?
Prime Number Generator - Minimal bytes
Fibonacci One-liner - Python wizardry

Creative Coding

ASCII Art Generator - Image to text
Terminal Music Player - CLI beats
Conway's Game of Life - Cellular automata
Mandelbrot Set Renderer - Math + art

📊 Challenge Difficulty Guide

✓ EASY - Good for beginners, basic concepts

✓ MEDIUM - Requires problem-solving skills

✓ HARD - Advanced algorithms, optimization needed

✓ EXPERT - Research-level complexity

💡 Pro Tips for Solving

1. Read Carefully - Understand the problem before coding

2. Start Simple - Brute force first, optimize later

3. Test Edge Cases - Empty input, max values, negatives

4. Time Yourself - Interview practice = time pressure

5. Review Solutions - Learn from others' approaches

6. Debug Smart - Print statements are your friend

$ cat coding-challenges/README.md