I am implementing a new type of crossword puzzle in GNOME Crosswords this summer. The current options are static crosswords of ‘known’ location. My project does the opposite, where it takes the words and places them wherever we can get the maximum amount of connections between the words. The pinnacle of this is a DFS…

Over the past few weeks, I have been writing the backend for the vocabulary-puzzle generator for Crosswords. But what entirely dictates a valid word placement whilst being mindful of all edge cases and managing the state of the puzzle upon the exploration of possible solutions? Finding valid intersections For each word in the list, the…

From white-boarding my ideas on a Google Doc, to writing a formal design document in Crosswords, my ability to communicate technical ideas clearly is being put to the test. Writing documentation is critical to guide others’ understanding of the code and choices made on a particular codebase. Especially when several developers are introduced to the…

Ongoing Work Back in March, I started to tackle this MR for GNOME Crosswords. It allowed me to learn a lot about navigating the codebase, adhere to naming conventions, and collaborating with others involved in Crosswords. Crosswords Editor features a section for users to input metadata, such as author name, puzzle URL, and date. Originally,…

May 13th, 2026 My name is Laureen Caliman, and I am a contributor for GNOME Crosswords with Google Summer of Code 2026. Crosswords are a stimulating challenge that promotes engagement in education. Computing systems are now an indelible factor of daily life, which has raised concerns on maintaining attention, long-term memory, and reinforcement of knowledge…