Kits drive innovation. When a kit sells well, suddenly there are people in every town building newfangled TV sets (remember Heathkit? They’re back!) or aerial Arduino robots (check out DIY Drones). Like seeds in the wind, those kits switch on thousands of new makers, who become a community of innovators, excited and hungry for more advanced kits and products, in an upward spiral.

MIT’s Michael Schrage looks into the phenomenon and finds that kit-makers have driven the great technology upheavals, from Boulton & Watt’s steam kits in the Industrial Revolution, to Woz and Jobs’ Apple I kits in the computer revolution.