Instructables
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Type of site
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Informational |
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| Owner | Autodesk Inc. |
| Created by | Eric J. Wilhelm, Ph.D., Co-founding partner of Squid Labs, CEO of Instructables |
| Slogan(s) | "share what you make" |
| Website | instructables.com |
| Alexa rank |
 621 (January 2017[update]) |
| Commercial | Yes |
| Registration | Yes |
| Launched | August 2005 |
Instructables is a website specializing in user-created and uploaded do-it-yourself projects, which other users can comment on and rate for quality. 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.
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 mostly on such projects as building electronic or mechanical devices to solve common problems around the home. The scope of the project has expanded to include a larger array of categories, including Food, Living, Outside, Tech, Play and Workshop. Sponsored categories are sometimes added for companies to advertise a specific topic on the site.
The site allows uploading of photos, diagrams, video and animation to help explain complex terminology and mechanisms in clear and understandable terms.
Instructables employs a full-time staff, and also has a volunteer group, who feature well-documented articles, welcome new users, and help out around the site.
On August 1, 2011, Autodesk announced the acquisition of Instructables.
Autodesk released the official instructables app for iOS devices on January 11, 2013. The app allows users to create and publish instructables from their mobile devices as well as view other instructables. Later on, a similar app was released for Android devices and Windows devices.
Once registered, members can create Instructables that are step-by-step descriptions of projects they want to share online. They are written in such a way that they easily allow other members to replicate, and share with the rest of the community. Members can also upload videos and slideshows, depicting a project that they have not documented.
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