Design engineers face continuous pressure to enhance product performance while driving down costs. For many devices, converting metal components to plastic is an effective way of achieving both goals.

[Shane] made a project that speaks directly to our heart — combining laser cutting, cardboard, and gears. How could it be any better? Well, it could do anything. But that’s quibbling. It’s fun enough ...

The use of plastic gears is limited, largely because it takes special expertise to design them properly. Too, many engineers deal with gears so infrequently, The use of plastic gears is limited, ...

Google is planning to release a new virtual reality headset for smartphones this year, pegged as a successor to its Google Cardboard platform and similar to Samsung’s Gear VR. The company will add ...

This article was updated March 6, 2023. It was originally published Aug. 1, 2001. Gears—even plastic ones—need to be lubricated if engineers are going to coax the best performance out of them. In the ...

A coral reef destroyed by a ghost fishing net that has smothered all life beneath it. Your new pair of sneakers or sunglasses may have once been a tangled crusty mess of fishing net on the bottom of ...

A few weeks ago a friend who doesn’t keep up on the latest tech trends asked me about virtual reality, so I explained that right now you can break things into expensive, PC-based systems like the HTC ...

The steering angle sensor measures the steering angle of the steering wheel and continuously indicates to the dynamic stability control system-also known as the electronic stability control, or ...

Discover a range of creative DIY projects that transform everyday materials into functional mechanical devices and unique items. Watch as a wooden gear shifter mechanism demonstrates the principles of ...

Virtual reality in 2016 is a complicated place, and it can be hard to know where to begin. Let us help. 2016 is widely expected to be the year of VR by people who believe that virtual reality has a ...

It’s very likely that a majority of readers will have had a gear fail in a piece of equipment, causing it to be unrepairable. This is a problem particularly with plastic gears, which shed teeth faster ...