Indeed many (most?) technology breakthroughs and great products start as "garage" experiments.
- Aviation didn't start with someone rolling out a 747, it started with the Wright Flyer - something that barely flew with just the right winds.
- Apple, Inc. literally started in a garage with an 8-bit computer with 8k ram and you had to provide your own case and power supply, monitor, and keyboard.
- The early stages of modern rocket technology looked not much different than this experiment: Here's a video of Goddard testing at his Aunt's farm:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/a/...
> "The neighbors complained"