This. There are a variety of different backgrounds regarding programming experience in Battlecode, and just as varied levels of commitment to the competition. There are those teams just looking to play around with the game and possibly try their hand at beating the reference player. Still other teams have their eyes set on the eternal glory of winning first place.

I was on Cory's (the author of the post) team last year and, as he alluded to in the article, we were a team of 4 bro-coding it up in my dorm room with practically nothing else on our mind during the month (we tried to eat and bathe occasionally). Though it was a lot of fun (some of the most fun I've had during my time at MIT), it was pretty intense.