In December 2011, the Instructables Team took to the streets of San Francisco, proudly wielding before them a 12-foot cardboard Trojan horse. Man, I love my job. Why did this happen? We had been invited to the Autodesk Christmas party just a few blocks away from our lab and we thought we should take along a present. Something unique. Something memorable. Something big enough to conceal a crack team of cardboard-sword-wielding troops. I had been playing around with a preview version of Autodesk’s new 123D Make software, a program for turning 3D models into a series of slices that can be laser cut and assembled in real life. This technology is tremendous fun to play around with, as it has the potential to rapidly prototype anything from elaborate papercraft projects to paneled items of clothing to flat-pack emergency shelters. This seemed like a great opportunity to test it out with a real life quick fabrication challenge: a Trojan horse. The Trojan horse, of course (of course!), could be seen as a metaphor for the way in which Autodesk acquired Instructables last year, little suspecting the creative havoc we would wreak once we’d infiltrated the corporation’s perimeter. I’m certainly not suggesting that this was our intention, only that a cynic might see it as such. Read on to find out more about how I made the horse! (via Giant Papercraft Trojan Horse)