allowing to customize its PCB specifically for the needs of FPGA console emulation.
From what I can recall, this is not what happened. He has stated multiple times that he's designed it to work as much like a DE-10 Nano as possible. There are no significant differences between his board and the original from what I can tell.
Does your school have a robotics team or something along the lines of computing? That would be a good option. Also if you are still in high school and plan on going to college, you still have plenty of time to learn.