Oh I don't know, forging the drill parts to extract the oil, fractionating, making the polymer, carving a blank to make moulds from, producing the alginate to make the master moulds, ... seems pretty interesting.
How do you learn where to assay for oil in the first place?
I still think building the transistors needed from scratch would be more interesting. You could argue that burying dinosaurs to make the oil is pretty cool.
How do you learn where to assay for oil in the first place?