Instructables is a website specializing in user-created and uploaded do-it-yourself projects, currently owned by Autodesk.[1] It was created by Eric Wilhelm and Saul Griffith and launched in August 2005. Instructables is dedicated to step-by-step collaboration among members to build a variety of projects. Users post instructions to their projects, usually accompanied by visual aids, and then interact through comment sections below each Instructable step as well in topic forums.
History
After graduating from the Media Lab at MIT, Wilhelm and Griffith founded Squid Labs, an engineering and technology company specializing in design and consulting. Instructables started as an internal Squid Labs project, which later spun out as an independent company with Wilhelm as its CEO. Wilhelm still regularly contributes to the site.
A prototype version of the site, complete with the initial content of electronics, cooking, kiting, and bicycle projects, was released in August 2005 at the O'Reilly Foo Camp conference.
The original content focused The site allows uploading of photos, diagrams, video and animation to help explain complex terminology and mechanisms in clear and understandable terms.[2]