Making things by hand is cool again.

You can be a creator, not just a consumer. Whether you’re into screen-printing T-shirts, soldering LEDs, modding pre-fab furniture, building robots, or just making dinner, you’re a part of the Maker movement that calls Instructables.com its online home.

Instructables is a place where artists, bicyclists, crafters, engineers, modders, cooks, tinkerers, and techies gather to share advice and ideas freely, and post thousands of their fantastic projects. We’re excited to finally bring you the best of Instructables in print. We think it’s a great introduction to the incredible variety of what you can make and do, and will hopefully inspire you to get started on great projects of your own.

Instructables is my biggest project. It all started when I took up kitesurfing while finishing up my Ph.D. in mechanical engineering at MIT. Kitesurfing equipment (modified surfboards, and giant kites to pull you around on them) was still new, and far too expensive for my graduate student budget, so I designed, built, and tested my own gear. I documented the designs and results on my personal website, and got email from lots of people who wanted to ask for advice, share their ideas and pictures, and meet me at the beach. Unfortunately, this took just as long as making the equipment in the first place. It was clear we needed a better way to share our projects online.

Instructables was one of the first ideas to come out of Squid Labs, the innovation research and design firm I started with some of my grad school kitesurfing buddies. We started using the step-by-step format to document our own projects, and liked it so much that we decided to give our friends access. Word spread quickly, and soon people we’d never met were posting fantastic projects. It quickly became clear Instructables was going to be huge, so I spun it off from Squid Labs (see my “How To Start a Business” Instructable—www.instructables.com/id/How_to_Start_a_Business_1 for more information) and built an awesome team to help it keep growing, and to provide a place for all sorts of great projects and discussions.

When someone builds, bakes, or creates something they’re proud of, they often put it on the coffee table so visitors will ask “how did you do that?” I think of Instructables as an online coffee table—a place for you to put your projects on display, show off your skills and creativity, and start interesting conversations with the people who stop by to check them out.

I find it deeply satisfying that this book will rest on many homemade coffee tables, and be stacked on crazy custom bookshelves. These awesome projects give you a taste of Instructables, and the sorts of creative things our online community has to offer. Get inspired by these projects, then check out the Instructables website for the full build details. Leave the author a message online, and if you try their project, take a picture and post it in the Comments.

We’ve had fun putting this book together, and the Instructables community has been amazing—each member contributes, and together we are Instructables. So browse through these fantastic projects, try something new, get some ideas, and post your own Instructables. This is The Best of Instructables, Volume 1—I can’t wait to see your entries in Volume II.

Now turn the page, pick a project, and go make something awesome!

Eric J. Wilhelm