I got to play with the hardware and see results. I get to do this about once a year as part of the design process. You analyze, design, then verify. I did the test to verify my model. If there is a difference between the model and the test, then I have to find out if I did the test and the model correctly.
Every engineer gets that feeling.
We always like to verify our work. The structural guys do dynamic testing, they shake their models. Every engineer enjoys hands-on stuff. The greatest benefit of this is the interfacing between people and the final product. In every job there is the problem of dealing with difficult people.