Working with the hands makes things happen in the brain.

Much has been written about the human hand and how its use effects the brain, language and culture (see Frank R. Wilson's The Hand, 1998). What we want to point out here is that the physical manipulation of things, like direct personal experience of any kind, generates sensory images of all sorts and thus enables thought. Hands-on tinkering leads to minds-on thinkering. Bodily engagement with nature teaches much more than any amount of words or numbers in science books. Doing produces a personal understanding that symbols simply can't.