Comment by dannyw
2 days ago
Fun and learning is a really good reason. It also reminds me of the damascene: trying to achieve something that doesn't feel possible, and working through all the extreme resource-constrained engineering limits.
I think most of my embedded projects aren't that useful, but they've taught me a lot.
I'm not disagreeing with you, I think this goes beyond impractical, it's doomed from the get go.
In my book, impractical means "I built a cuckoo wristwatch". Beyond impractical: "I built a cuckoo wristwatch but there was no room for a working mechanism".
I don't see the relationship between "fun and learning" and "(beyond) impractical".
I enter most of my learning project from the assumption that I could just buy/install whatever I am building and save time/money.
Please consider seeing things from a different perspective than "your book".
Not saying this to antagonise you, but because a lot of time reading comments like this makes other posters less willing to share their impractical efforts, and would love to read more of those, not less.
Learning how to make a cuckoo wristwatch and everything that involves helps you acquire skills, even if what you build is fundamentally useless.