Very cool! The suggestion to consider how the standard model came to be rather than starting with the result sounds like an excellent idea.

But of course i have to disagree with this: "A spin-1/2 particle is described by a spinor, which is a bit weird, but spin-1 particle is described by something more familiar: a vector!"

In my view a spinor is even more familiar than a vector: it's like a hand - it comes back to itself after 720° of rotation. Just like a vector is like an arrow or a mirror, which come back after 360°. What could be more familiar than a hand?

> it's like a hand - it comes back to itself after 720° of rotation

The analogy is a bit broken in a way that may add confusion. The hand comes back to it's starting configuration after two 360° rotations, each along a different axis. A spinor's symmetry has 720° of rotation along a single axis.

My hand comes back after 360°.

"a spinor is like a hand" is about as intuitive as "a monad is like a burrito"

Spinors are so intuitive that you need a 1 hour video full of animations to explain them: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b7OIbMCIfs4