Are You Able to Solve It? The Overlooked Dutch Invention Which Forged the Contemporary Globe

One can find numerous contenders to claim the title of “world’s most significant innovation.” The circular axle. The movable type. The steam engine.

According to a new book, however, that title should go to the automated sawmill invented through Dutch inventor Corneliszoon van Uitgeest in 1593.

“Before mechanised sawing, building a modest merchant vessel necessitated around ten sawyers laboring for 90 days,” writes Jaime Dávila. “Using wind-driven sawmills, an identical quantity of processed timber could be manufactured in less than seven days.”

Thanks to their speedy mechanical saw, that converted logs into boards with virtually no manual labor, the Dutch could build ships faster compared to anyone else, which sparked one hundred years of Netherlands naval, economic as well as artistic dominance in the continent and the globe.

The Original True Manufacturing Device

Corneliszoon’s lumber mill, argues the writer, represented “mankind’s initial true factory machine.” A wind turbine rotated a wheel. A single part transformed the circular motion into up-and-down action to power the cutting blade. A separate mechanism changed that same spinning motion into a lateral motion advancing the timber toward the cutter. A geared mechanism shifted the wood ahead a measured step each stroke.

“Each element was modest on its own. The Dutchman’s genius was to integrate these parts in order that they operated in a precisely synchronized sequence, cutting on every descending stroke and moving on every return stroke. It was an astonishingly clever application of fundamental components.”

Which brings us up to the current challenge. The task is for you to reimagine one of the basic ideas underpinning this historic machine.

Circular to Vertical

Construct a machine which converts rotary movement to up-and-down motion. You have these items exclusively: A rotating disc. Two pegs. Two bars. A “sleeve”, which is a tube or sleeve through which one of the rods can slide snugly. (Consider that you can put things on a base, so that the components do not collapse.)

The solution returns later today UK with the solution.

In the interim, PLEASE NO HINTS. Instead, feel free to propose (less celebrated) contenders for the world’s most impactful creation.