My guess is that it isn't for "People who spend time doing hardware prototyping, or software development for custom hardware"
It's for people who are interested in (using an example provided on the site) in making an "automated soap dispenser" and don't know where to start.
I'll take me as a random example. I can code a little bit (if gun's to my head and I have an O'Reilly book to hand). I bought a 3D printer and spent months happily playing with that which then lead me into Fusion 360. I bought an Arduino play-kit and spent a few evenings swearing as I blew up LEDs, learnt what resistors did, then realized I couldn't tell the f'ers apart due to colour blindness.
I've sunk many many hours into the first 5% of some skills that could possibly all together let me create a product - but I'm not even close.
I saw this project as providing a physical equivalent of say "block coding" that's used to teach children. It's not going to give you the best/most-efficient/cheapest result - but starting from zero, it gives you a decent chance of making something functional and looking at something useful that you made.
(and after that you can do the industrial design, create your injection moulds, design the custom PCB, ramp up a Chinese factory, and ship your product in lovely matte-card boxes - if you so wish)
I totally understand where you're coming from and would put myself in a similar position. The creator of the project highlighted faster hardware prototyping as the major feature, which is what I was responding to.
To be fair, without seeing the software, it's hard to know how much easier a project would be as a whole. But just to take that soap dispenser example, there's already some shortcuts taken - using a glue gun, Duplo and a perfectly shaped arm on a motor. If you had that, a Raspberry Pi and a couple of "ready to go" HATs from reputable suppliers who provide code examples, I don't think there would be a huge difference.
It's for people who are interested in (using an example provided on the site) in making an "automated soap dispenser" and don't know where to start.
I'll take me as a random example. I can code a little bit (if gun's to my head and I have an O'Reilly book to hand). I bought a 3D printer and spent months happily playing with that which then lead me into Fusion 360. I bought an Arduino play-kit and spent a few evenings swearing as I blew up LEDs, learnt what resistors did, then realized I couldn't tell the f'ers apart due to colour blindness.
I've sunk many many hours into the first 5% of some skills that could possibly all together let me create a product - but I'm not even close.
I saw this project as providing a physical equivalent of say "block coding" that's used to teach children. It's not going to give you the best/most-efficient/cheapest result - but starting from zero, it gives you a decent chance of making something functional and looking at something useful that you made. (and after that you can do the industrial design, create your injection moulds, design the custom PCB, ramp up a Chinese factory, and ship your product in lovely matte-card boxes - if you so wish)