Lesson 1 (Finished)

 Techniques:  
 To build this alleyway/city, I used the NURBS Primitives shapes, the move tool, the scale tool, the rotate tool, and the component select tool.

 Difficulties:
I occasionally found it difficult to navigate through the dense wilderness of buttons that is Autodesk Maya, but outside of this, I had few difficulties.

Successes:

 I particularly fond of my lightposts and my  courthouse at the end of the street, though making the entire town was pretty fun.