Jon Kalish

Inventing a new product is hard if you can't afford to build a prototype. Enter maker spaces, workshops boasting shared high-tech tools. Entrepreneurs love them, and big backers are taking notice.

Remember the Sears kit houses from the early 1900s, ordered from a catalog and assembled on-site? Now, online designers around the world are building WikiHouses out of plywood pieces that fit together like a puzzle. No nails, no fasteners, no adhesives. Just slot-together joints and the Internet.

Collective Cadenza, or CDZA for short, is a loose-knit group of musicians — many of them graduates of Juilliard. They've made a name for themselves with funny YouTube videos that have received millions of views. As a result, the group was invited to perform live at the inaugural YouTube Music Awards alongside Eminem, Lady Gaga and Arcade Fire.

Bread and Puppet Theater has been a familiar presence at political demonstrations since the anti-war protests of the 1960s. Its giant puppets and raucous brass band also marched against wars in Central America, Afghanistan and Iraq. The troupe marks its 50th anniversary this year.

Despite his disability, Larry Selman devoted more than half his life collecting money for multiple charities from total strangers on the streets of New York. The subject of the Oscar-nominated film The Collector of Bedford Street died Jan. 20 at the age of 70.

With the rise of the do-it-yourself movement, more groups are springing up to encourage kids to link crafts and science. Modeled on more traditional Scouting groups, kids and their parents meet up in tool-filled "hacker spaces" to build electronics and get creative.