You claiming that OOP didn't improve any skills over the project? That's frankly an insane claim, and I'd say that even if this person knew everything they needed to know to do this (there's no way, I'm certain he had to Google things and troubleshoot), it's still practice. I promise, wiring up anything is a generalizable skill, even moreso than turning a wrench on a turbo imo, this coming from somebody who does their own work on two turbocharged hatchbacks.
Worst case scenario, OOP essentially solved a puzzle. They may have turned junk into fancy junk, but they didn't fucking do it in their sleep. Do crosswords have no value? Do Legos have no value? Here's a hint: it's subjective. It was obviously valuable to them, or they wouldn't have done it. "Society" or whatever comes second.