>Also, I feel like this is super indicative of the gate-keeping mentality a lot of IT and tech

That lumps people together. I'm in IT/tech but don't value intricate, difficult, extreme novelty over everything else. That would be absurd.

Remember Stanfords $1 paper microscope for looking at blood samples? Now that was badass.

The cleverness is in the saving of $7940 to solve a problem. Dumpster-diving for parts and materials, or even freeganning Whole Foods are all perfectly valid too.

I remember a guy used his seat aisle's window on StartupBus as a whiteboard with dry-erase markers, but I guess he should've brought an LED light strip to make it pop more. The trick is installing it. ;-)