Can You Solve It? That Overlooked Netherlands Creation That Forged our Modern Globe
There are many candidates for the designation as “planet’s most significant invention.” The wheel. The printing press. The combustion motor.
According to a recent publication, however, that honor belongs to a automated sawmill invented through Dutch inventor Corneliszoon van Uitgeest in 1593.
“Before automated cutting, building a simple merchant vessel necessitated approximately ten sawyers working over three months,” notes the author. “With wind-driven lumber mills, the same quantity of cut lumber might be produced in less than seven days.”
Owing to their rapid mechanical cutter, that converted timber into boards with virtually no human effort, Dutch builders could build ships faster compared to any other nation, an advantage that unleashed a century of Netherlands naval, financial and artistic dominance in Europe and the world.
The First True Manufacturing Machine
Corneliszoon’s lumber mill, contends Dávila, represented “mankind’s initial true factory apparatus.” A windmill rotated a gear. One component converted its rotary motion into up-and-down action to power the cutting blade. A separate mechanism changed the rotary movement into a lateral motion advancing the timber toward the blade. A ratchet system shifted the log forward one precise increment per stroke.
“Every component was modest by itself. Corneliszoon’s brilliance was to combine these parts in order that they operated within a perfectly controlled sequence, cutting with each descending motion and advancing on every return stroke. It was a remarkably clever use of basic parts.”
A fact that leads us up to the current challenge. The task is you to reimagine one of the basic concepts underpinning this historic invention.
Circular to Vertical
Design a mechanism that turns circular motion into vertical action. You have these components exclusively: A rotating disc. Two pegs. Two bars. A “guide”, which is a cylinder or housing into which one of the rods can slide perfectly. (Consider that you can mount components on a stand, so that the parts don’t fall down.)
The solution returns at 5pm UK featuring the answer.
In the interim, NO SPOILERS. Instead, please propose (non obvious) contenders for the world’s most impactful invention.
