The two main lessons of constructing the hoop house project were that building stuff is hard and that hard work can be the way to build stuff. Now when I say building stuff is hard I'm referring to its actual construction. There are just so many slight misalignments and little details you forgot that can add hours to the build phase. In the earlier stages of building, logistics are also a huge problem in terms of moving large pieces of material, figuring out how to cut them to size, figuring out the best order for assembly (and in this case, disassembly and transport and then reassembly), etc., etc. I guess the true larger lesson to be learned, then, is it's always good practice to think about these problems before the actual construction phase so that you might lessen their impact or avoid them altogether.
When I say hard work can be the way to build stuff I'm referring to the design phase. In a group setting especially there are so many ideas and beliefs that conflict becomes almost inevitable. Even without conflict there is a still the issue of translating your design intent into something that will stand up and stay together. My group and I pulled two all-nighters, stayed up until five or six in the morning various other nights, and generally plodded relentlessly through week after week to design and build our project. There were some tough moments but our willingness to put in so many hours in the end gave us something we were, despite it all, really proud of. In other words, we almost wanted to kill each other at the end, but when we saw how beautiful the thing we made was, all the anger went away.
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