Conversely, I think they probably have a good grasp of the basics considering they've been through them so many times. The real thing they lacked was a reasonable idea. I find a lot of early engineers have this problem where the only things they actually want to build are too complex for their skills. So they end up stuck in this 'Tutorial Hell' loop hoping to acquire those skills until they actually reason down to a project that fits their skill level and go from there as OP did here.