In elementary and middle school I had a bunch of balsa, bass, and pine wood to try and build projects with. One such project was building a life-size model of a trojan horse and despite stroling it on a dolley in middle school my teacher(now fired) gave me a C for the supporting writeup.
The ability to go from nothing into something was an extremely motivating force -- when I was part of the SciOly team I started on the team focused on building bridges or structured that could withstand a lot of weight.
And to get this done I needed how to get my fingers stuck with Gorrila Glue a lot. I didn't trust anyone to get it right and didn't think anyone could do it as I could -- I learned how to bend wood by moisterizing the balsa wood over steaming pans and how to properly think about tension and build the entire bridge or structure.
In the end this was one of a few wood bridges and structures I made that probably won some prize I can't fully remember. But it did weigh 15 grams and supported well over 15 kilograms of weight.