I remember one pivotal moment in college being when I was given an assignment, and I asked if some of the restrictions on the task could be removed. The teacher told me what I really did was just ask for the hard version of the problem.

I asked her what she meant, and instead of telling me, she just laughed and said go ahead, remove the restrictions and see for myself.

She was right! Without the restrictions there were so many more possibilities I had to work much harder to complete the assignment. It was still fun though and I learned more than just the assignment from that lesson.