Engineers who like to tinker around with electronics projects may be interested in Phidgets, a neat modular approach to device interactivity. It’s basically a system for using a USB interface to read data from a huge variety of sensors: touch, sliding, force, light, rotation, magnetic, vibration, temperature, RFID, etc – in other words, any type of physical input can easily be detected and used by a computer for whatever purposes the engineer can dream up. Naturally, software tools are included to help integrate these sensors into that world-conquering robot you’ve always wanted to design. Prices are quite reasonable, too.

Southco is offering Dzus quarter turn fasteners in plastic, with optional custom color matching. There’s a nice selection of options for both the receptacle and the head style. I had a hard time getting any good output from the online part configurator, but they do include a link to a good ‘ol fashioned datasheet as well. More info here.

The race is on to build low cost rapid prototyping systems! 3D Systems is soon to unveil their V-Flash for $10k, and now California startup Desktop Factory is working on an even less expensive prototyping system, to be priced around $5-7k. The V-Flash has the edge on build size, sporting a 7x9x8 build area versus the 5x5x5 inch build area from Desktop Factory. It’ll be interesting to see a head to head comparison of these two systems once they both hit the market.

Check out this video overview of a compact CVT (Continuously Variable Transmission) from Fallbrook Technologies, based on a concept proposed by Leonardo DaVinci. While this seems brilliant and well suited to bicycle or other low power applications, I am skeptical about the manufacturer’s claims of its potential for use in cars – I question whether it could really handle higher power levels. It’s still a great technology with lots of potential applications though.

You can read more about CVTs here.

(via Coolhunting)

The transmission will be appearing in this cool looking bike from Ellsworth.