How many smart people run marathons, do all night drink binging sessions, travel to exotic cities and other such follies?
My belief is that a project like this (and probably the marathon and travel too!) make you smarter. You need to do something that ain’t work sometimes!
Ignoring most of your comment and only focusing on this part:
> the world needs smart people like you solving real problems
It has them. And they’re doing pretty much exactly this. What’s described in the OP resembles a pretty standard machine design process – the key is splitting up the complex goal into smaller manageable units. (And using tools for the tedious parts such as gear math; if the tools don’t exist, you of course develop your own!)
The author was presumably able to do this because they’ve already solved a real problem or two.
