Donatello's scientific knowledge and engineering skills

[Prowler]

When you think about it, isn't Donatello the turtle that's the hardest to buy when it comes to their strong points? I mean, Leonardo is the most skilled fighter and the leader. But again, all of the 4 Turtles are ninjas and know how to fight. One had to be the best one. So hardly anything strange about that. Michelangelo and Raphael usually have the strongest and most memorable personalities, but even a mutated turtle can learn martial arts, I don't think it's unfeasible at all for them to learn how to skateboard, play video games, surf, tell jokes every 3 minutes, etc. Nothing about their characters is hard to buy except maybe Mike being too chicken or too immature and stupid at times.

But Donatello... aren't his technological feats quite unbelievable for a Turtle who spend his entire life living in a sewer? The knowledge needed to build trans-dimensional portals, vans, big af pizza machines, cloning devices, etc. isn't knowledge/skill you can just self-teach yourself like a foreign language or learning about history. You'd need to actually attend university and obtain a degree. And engineering degrees are some of the hardest around. And it doesn't seem like Donatello only specialises in one field of engineering. No. He seems to be a great computer, mechanical and chemical engineer. I guess he's not into civil engineering...

Yes, I know it's a cartoon/comic, wtv. And one of the guys had to be the "science/nerd" one. But are we supposed to buy the "Donatello just picked up a few books and learned all of that by himself in a year or so" explanation? In the FW series in particular, Donatello is practically the leader. If he didn't exist then the Turtles would have died by episode 2 or 3. Seems like Donatello is the most important Turtle when you think about it. Especially considering the fact that sci-fi is one of the genres that TMNT falls under.

Thoughts?