yes. i've come to the conclusion not that learning c is helpful but that writing malloc is helpful. i'm eternally grateful that was assigned as a project my sophomore year.
You can search for "malloc lab" and find tons of copies of the assignment (with only the instructor names and course numbers changed), but here's one:
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs/academic/class/15213-f02/L6/mal...