Soldering is zen. It's slow and careful, but satisfying. Like coloring with a 350°C iron. You gently heat the pad with the iron, and slowly introduce the solder. Flux will guide solder to the pads. Don't worry if you mess up a couple, by the 72nd pad, it's becomes second nature. Micro controllers are a little trickier, but planning and slow pace really takes care of it. You might burn off a pad if you keep the iron too hot for too long, but not long enough and you might get a cold joint that isn't complete. Look up tutorials for a beetter idea.

I went for handwired initially, but didn't have a great seat for the knobs or board. Hot glue got annoying, so I got splitkb aurora corne and snapped off columns.

I used QMK to do stuff. You can use python pip to install qmk.

python3 -m pip install qmk

qmk setup # after installing

Then config with

qmk config compile.keyboard=splitkb/aurora/corne/rev1 compile.keymap=default

Flash to each half with

qmk flash # double click reset to flash

There is a ton of amazing customization options. I have layers and combos for passwords, pins, shortcuts, macros, gaming, etc...

https://splitkb.com/collections/keyboard-kits/products/aurora-corne

https://www.littlekeyboards.com/collections/corne-cases/products/mini-corne-technician-keyboard-case?variant=40212013449283