One of the problems with being a beginner is an inability to tell which projects are easy and which are hard, especially if you're doing a "real" project, which

One of the problems with being a beginner is an inability to tell which projects are easy and which are hard, especially if you're doing a "real" project, which is to say, one of your choice from some real problem you have in life, rather than some pre-selected project just for the project's sake. I've encouraged my kids to use their school years to try out lots of different things, and a consistent theme in all of them is getting them to just scale down their first try. Do not expect to replicate Minecraft. Do not expect to film a feature-length special-effects movie. Do not expect to create a dishwashing robot. Do not set out to write a decalogy high fantasy series. etc. The beginner doesn't know what they don't know. Robotics has the particular problem that small-scale robotics are often frankly just not that useful. It's been a problem with the field for a long time. The learning curve is quite steep with robotics, and given that the beginner is likely to destroy some equipment along the way, expensive. There still isn't really that much the field can do about that right now. It's better than it used to be, but it's still pretty hard.