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Fun/learning. This is actually quite a sophisticated engineering challenge and there is a ton of stuff to be learned. I would love to do this if I had the time.

There is a yak, and it is furry.

For the uninitiated: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/yak_shaving

1. Any apparently useless activity which, by allowing you to overcome intermediate difficulties, allows you to solve a larger problem.

I was doing a bit of yak shaving this morning, and it looks like it might have paid off.

2. A less useful activity done consciously or subconsciously to procrastinate about a larger but more useful task.

I looked at a reference manual for my car just to answer one question, but I spent the whole afternoon with my nose buried in it, just yak shaving, and got no work done on the car itself.

I view projects like this along the same lines as maintaining classic cars. It a fun and rewarding project, and you learn things along the way.

The same reason people build and fly model airplanes even though it would be impossible to transport a financially viable amount of cargo on them. It's fun.