Peter Rakos in his article in Gamasutra shows how to create a 3D simulation in Excel. He uses the create polyline (Shapes.AddPolyline) function in excel to generate a set of  triangles (2D). A paid of these triangles is used to generate one surface of a rotating cube. 12 such triangles are used to generate the entire cube (12 triangles = 6 surfaces = 1 cube). Before each iteration, the previous shapes are destroyed and new ones created. That’s the easy part……the beauty lies in transposing the x,y,z coordinates of a 3D object into x,y coordinates of a 2D shape. Though I disagree with Peter’s suggestion that this has application in gaming….I think it would be better suited as an example for young students to experiment.

Play around with it….change shape, displacement, lighting….it’s good fun.

You can download the original file Gamasutra
I’ve made a slight modification which makes it easier to run the functions here