Last summer, I took on one such an ambitious project: To build a dock in my backyard (which has a big river) for my boat. Where I live, dockbuilders are not interested in coming out, and I wanted a permanent structure.
About ~$1200 in materials and many bruised and scraped weekends later... I have something workable. For sure, if I had to do it again, I would do a better job, but it was very satisfying to have not just accomplished it, and have it look kind of OK and rustic, but also it survived the winter ice floes without issue. (Reason: The structure weighs ~7 tons)
I found it impossible to bore into the river bottom to make post holes. Too many rocks and soon bedrock below those rocks. Second was an immovable boulder. So I made the boulder the anchor of the structure.
I poured concrete slabs reinforced with rebar to form straight planes and set them in place with concrete filled cinder blocks. Once those were all reasonably level, I built up a wall around the boulder with cinder blocks. This part easily took the longest to get to. Next, the holes in cinder blocks I filled with concrete and rebar.
The center I hauled all the river rocks nearby in the river bottom I could manage to fill the middle up. Then a layer of gravel over the top to make sure no concrete dripped down to the water line and I filled it up level to the top with concrete. I also had taken some really dense old growth trees felled nearby and poured concrete around the bases and set those in place (you want poles to help with mooring - I have a 20 foot boat). At this point I had a big concrete square with big posts sticking out. After that, concrete forms with bolt anchors so I could bolt down my wood dock onto the concrete.
I mostly did all this myself. I did have a little help here and there - my neighbor helped get the wood dock in place, and I paid my nephews to help pour concrete one weekend when my fingers were all too bloody.
>Students may never pick up a tool again, but they will forever have the knowledge of how to make and evaluate things with your hand and your eye and appreciate the labor of others
When I was in middle school (~40 years ago) I had a shop teacher who had us do a hands on project- assemble a nightlight using electric plug pins, a resistor, an indicator bulb, all encapsulated in resin shaped in an ice cube tray (sorry, I can't find anything online showing it at the moment). The teacher had us do most of the work (soldering) although he handled the resin. He showed us that by using the right value of resistor, the bulb could still make a usably bright light while costing only about $0.10 in electricity a year.
Years later, when the shop teacher passed away, it was announced on facebook and many people showed up in the comments to say they still had their nightlights, and that they still worked 40 years later. I had lost mine years before but somebody sent me a photo and I was able to deduce the components and build a new one. The longevity is due to the simplicity and reliability of the components as well as the toughness of resin.
Think about that- 40 years later, a bunch of kids who didn't have any deep investment in electronics or shop still had items they had built decades before, that still worked. It gave us a sense of satisfaction and a confidence in our abilities.
Many of the most successful folks in the early telecom and scientific instrumentation industry got deep experience doing hand-building of vacuum tubes (typically working at Westinghouse/AT&T in NYC, which was the center of development for that technology, see "The Idea Factory). For example, the inventor of the modern pH meter was a scientist named Beckman who realized he could use the tubes as amplifiers for the tiny signal generated by the hydrogen electrode of the meter, he learned his craft building vacuum tubes by hand.
Although I went into computational research and rarely used my hands (except to assemble PCs), in the past few years I've gotten deeply into "making"- including hand workworking (a chisel and a plane are remarkably effective) and gained a lot of enjoyment from the tactile process of building. I often run my hands over wood using my senses to identify high and low points and tiny scratches (the human hand can detect differences as low as 1 micron) and then correct those through scraping and sanding/grinding. In many ways it can be more satisfying as writing a nice code.
My job, like I imagine the jobs of most people here, involves mostly abstract symbol manipulation, with the occasional meeting. When I'm not working, I do physical things; climbing, hiking, and making and fixing things with my hands. I derive deep satisfaction from all of them.
Sure, I might take three months to make something I could have bought for $1000, but price is not the point. The thing I made is a unique reflection of my own self, and the experience of making it has value that no money could ever buy.
I think there's something physical about engaging in work with your hands, even if it is just typing the keyboard. The brain seems to like it when its motor cortex is engaged and it feels good. That's why stress toys and worry beads work.
To learn anything, I always turn towards youtube. Its easily the best for getting started in anything. Cooking, carpentry, masonary, building a house!
But it just stops the moment you get started and make it to the beginner stage. The moment you get one project done, the details around how certain things work is nothing to be found on youtube, unless it’s a very generic skill like cooking.
After that valley of amateur, learning by doing is the best teacher.
I disagree strongly. I have done things like changing the electrical sockets and conducts, replaced the toilet cisterns, the water faucets, remove brick and plaster walls and created new ones, and most of the important knowledge for doing that came from Youtube.
Just the other day I needed to remove the ceramic tiles in the kitchen to access a terrible drain clog as no professional wanted to risk doing that(it is easy to break the tiles, it could take so much time and in the end not fixing completely the issue so they will have to ask for a lot of money but you will be angry if they don't fix it). I have never done that but I looked at some videos and I removed 4 tiles and only broke slightly one(nobody is going to see it).
I am engineer so I understand how things work but before Youtube it would be impossible to do that as I will make very expensive mistakes like flooding or burning the house.
I also learn a lot from professionals just by watching them work.
>The moment you get one project done, the details around how certain things work is nothing to be found on YouTube
I believe the details are there but you need to be prepared to see them. A lot of times I made mistakes and then realised that the video bewared against it, but I just didn't pay attention to it.
The pitfall there is getting stuck in a loop of tutorials. I picked up some pencils and a sketchbook yesterday and consciously decided not to follow tutorials. I have like 5 (super shitty!) drawings now, where I would have had none if I'd gone the YouTube route.
I suspect (as with all things) it varies, at least partly based on how important a thing going well is.
In your case of doing some drawing there’s not really any downside to doing it badly other than a bit of time you might consider wasted, and the cost of a few sheets of paper. If you’re working on mains electrics the downside is potentially as bad as your house burning down with everyone in it. In that case it’s probably worth watching a few tutorials first.
About ~$1200 in materials and many bruised and scraped weekends later... I have something workable. For sure, if I had to do it again, I would do a better job, but it was very satisfying to have not just accomplished it, and have it look kind of OK and rustic, but also it survived the winter ice floes without issue. (Reason: The structure weighs ~7 tons)