Aidan Deshong author page
1 puzzle by Aidan Deshong
with Constructor comments
| C | A | P | T | C | H | A | G | A | M | I | F | Y | ||
| A | B | R | A | H | A | M | O | N | E | S | I | E | S | |
| U | B | E | R | I | Z | E | D | N | A | T | E | S | T | |
| S | O | F | T | N | E | S | S | A | L | O | N | S | O | |
| E | T | E | S | E | C | D | I | N | ||||||
| S | T | R | A | P | S | R | A | M | S | I | R | E | ||
| L | E | T | T | E | R | O | P | E | N | E | R | |||
| M | A | N | D | A | R | I | N | O | R | A | N | G | E | S |
| S | P | O | I | L | E | R | A | L | E | R | T | |||
| P | E | I | S | P | E | D | L | E | S | M | I | S | ||
| A | R | T | D | E | W | A | N | T | ||||||
| I | T | S | O | D | D | D | A | T | A | M | I | N | E | |
| N | U | N | H | O | O | D | S | O | M | A | L | I | A | |
| T | R | O | O | P | E | R | P | R | E | T | E | N | D | |
| E | T | H | E | R | S | S | Y | N | E | R | G | Y |
Hi! I'm a high school senior graduating next Friday and turning 18 a few days after, so this is a very exciting time for me all around. I will be at Harvey Mudd next fall—but believe it or not, this is not the first NYT crossword made by a then-incoming freshman at Harvey Mudd. (The first ran in 2021.) I'm just here to continue the tradition.
I started with the grid shape, and got lucky by finding a solid center early on. I tried to incorporate as many fresh-but-accessible tech terms as possible, at least one per corner. When the M and S in the left middle lended themselves to MS PAINT, I knew I had to finish the grid. It was actually Christina Iverson of the NYT team who filled the bottom left after I just couldn't get it all the way—thank you, Christina! And thanks to everyone else for solving!