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On November 4, a solution was discovered—in a videogame. That’s the day Microsoft released the Kinect for Xbox 360, a $150 add-on that allows players to direct the action in a game simply by moving their bodies. Most of the world focused on the controller-free interface, but roboticists saw something else entirely: an affordable, lightweight camera that could capture 3-D images in real time.

When DIYers combine those cheap, powerful tools with the collaborative potential of the Internet, they can come up with the kinds of innovations that once sprang only from big-budget R&D labs. In 2009, a PhD student named Daniel Reetz turned two Canon PowerShot A590s into an improvised high-speed book scanner. He detailed the project on a website, DIYbookscanner.org, where readers have since posted hundreds of tweaks, suggestions, upgrades, and entirely new designs. The open source MPGuino project, which uses an Arduino microcontroller to track gas consumption as you drive, has inspired a small community of fans who help refine and customize the gizmo.