Is there a way to create a compact not gate without ptct since the heat is an issue since it is surrounded by brick and I'd prefer to not use insl as I feel it is in a way cheating and isn't as fun to destroy

It's a bit too big for what I'm going for unfortunately

Please do. And while the tutorials are useful, they don't quite aid you in building proper projects. I'd compare it to teaching you how to screw some bolts and then expect you to build a car. It would be useful to at the very least have an example project to use to utilize these ideas. Then you can add little things to see what happens and use trial/error to figure out aspects of electronics in TPT. That's just how I'm learning programming but yeah.