Best HW programmer.

I wanted to offer criticism at the very beginning, but I decided to wait. As I see it, the competition is unsuccessful. And there are several objective reasons for this.

1. There aren't many programmers on the forum.
2. Not all programmers have the time or desire to participate. Some don't visit this section or do so quite rarely. Or maybe they're just not interested in this kind of competition. Thus, the audience is even further reduced.

Also, the competition isn't entirely fair in the sense that someone might even dream of becoming a programmer, but they simply don't have the knowledge at the moment to complete the tasks, because they (let's say) are still in school. Someone else has long since received a higher education and works as a programmer; naturally, they have much more knowledge and experience, and what might cause difficulty for a novice programmer, an experienced programmer will solve without any problems. The novice isn't to blame for having devoted less time to programming, not even because of their talents/diligence, etc., but simply because they didn't have the opportunity due to their age.