I would love to see a manual input crank that you could connect to a shaft. This would turn the shaft at a set speed & force for testing contraptions where I don't have constant energy set up yet, and I just want to make sure that things work.

Also for like the very start of a game, so I could turn the gears manually before I am ready to build the water wheel or fan.

Thanks for the suggestion, the hand crank has indeed been a popular one.
It's being worked on for the upcoming major version 0.2

This should be addressed in the new version that went live just now.
Thanks for the Issue and feel free to re-open if need be.