The author of the text has successfully set up a Couchbase cluster on three Intel Compute Sticks, with each device connected via a USB-to-Ethernet adapter to provide a wired connection. The author encountered issues with wifi connectivity and tried different adapters before settling on Belkin F4UO61 adapters that worked intermittently. To optimize performance, the author made tweaks such as adjusting "swappiness" and disabling the Ubuntu UI on boot-up, and installed OpenSSH server for remote access to the command line. Once the cluster was up and running, the author commissioned help from their wife to tidy up the wiring into a more presentable setup.