Just this to add today...

6"-long pieces of 3mm steel.

I guess I can weld now. This was essentially the three stages involved in today's hands-on welding class.

The first steel plate was step one: just weld a line (the thicker line is more how it should be, and how I got it once prompted to move slower.

The second involved welding a piece to another, first held together with a magnet, and tacked in place, then with the magnet removed, weld a line between the two points. What you see there is my second attempt.

The third involved this kind of sweeping motion, which lays down more weld, enough to show through on the other side and back of the piece. Like so...

Overall it was good but a challenge to actually see what you're welding through the visor; we all seemed to have this difficulty and I'm not sure if it's about our eyes getting used to focusing on the work and away from the flare, or if our visors were all set wrong, but the instructor didn't see to understand our issue here and had checked all the visors to begin with... odd.