Yes.
My family and I have done a lot of the things in these books. Not all at industrial scale, obviously, but enough to know what's realistic and what isn't.
We've experimented. Built. Tested. Failed. Tried again.
Some of it worked well. Some of it was an epic failure. That's part of the point.
Understanding doesn't come from reading a summary. It comes from doing the thing and figuring out why it didn't work the first time.
When you build something yourself, even badly, you start to see the layers.
You realize where the friction is. Where the heat loss is. Where the measurement error creeps in.
That changes how you look at everything.
The series isn't built on fantasy shortcuts. It's built on experimentation. The same kind of experimentation that teachers and makers have been doing for generations.
And yes, each book is dedicated to a teacher who embodied that spirit. Those dedications aren't decorative. They're earned.
It's curiosity fiction.