That is an ebb and flow system. The nutrients are are on a timer and pumped over the root system, which I assume is sitting in some medium like clay pellets, then it flows back down into the reservior, where hopefully it would be arieated with air stones or something.

This should work fine, but less complicated ones would do just as good for a beginner. For beginning weed growing 101 I tell all my students to build a cheap DWC system, where some of the root mass is constantly in ariated and hopfully somewhat turbulent nutrients.

One advantage of Ebb and Flow is that it keeps a lot of oxygen in the nutes, which is of course great for the plants. Many people don't realize that you can also do this with DWC if you put a pump in there that moves and ariates the nutes. There's less to buy and fiddle with with a DWC system such as an "Emily's Garden" set up. Search the web for this to see for yourself. To start I bought a used one of these for $60 complete. Since then I've made several better ones for about $30 complete. The air pump is the biggest expense.

But I digress... Good luck.