Are You Able to Crack This? The Overlooked Netherlands Invention Which Shaped our Contemporary World
There are numerous candidates to claim the title of “planet’s greatest innovation.” The circular axle. The printing press. The steam engine.
As per a recent publication, however, that title should go to the automated sawmill conceived through Dutch inventor Cornelis Corneliszoon in 1593.
“Before automated cutting, constructing a modest merchant vessel required approximately ten sawyers laboring for 90 days,” writes Jaime Dávila. “With wind-driven sawmills, an identical amount of cut lumber could be produced within a week.”
Owing to their rapid mechanical cutter, which turned timber to planks using almost no manual labor, the Dutch were able to build vessels more quickly compared to any other nation, an advantage that unleashed a century of Netherlands naval, economic and artistic dominance across the continent and the world.
The Original True Manufacturing Machine
The inventor's sawmill, contends Dávila, was “mankind’s initial authentic industrial apparatus.” A wind turbine rotated a gear. A single part converted its rotary motion into vertical motion to power the cutting blade. A separate mechanism changed that same rotary movement into a sideway’s movement advancing the timber to the cutter. A ratchet system moved the wood ahead a measured step per cycle.
“Each element seemed simple by itself. Corneliszoon’s brilliance was to combine these parts so the machine acted within a perfectly controlled order, sawing with each downward motion and moving with each upward stroke. This constituted a remarkably clever application of basic components.”
Which brings us up to today’s puzzle. The task is for you to reinvent one of the basic concepts behind this historic invention.
Round and Up
Construct a mechanism that turns circular motion to up-and-down action. Your available these components only: A spinning wheel. Two pegs. Two bars. A “sleeve”, which is a tube or sleeve through which a single the bars can slide snugly. (Consider that it is possible to mount components on a base, so the parts don’t fall down.)
The solution returns at 5pm UK featuring the answer.
Meanwhile, PLEASE NO HINTS. Instead, feel free to propose (less celebrated) contenders for the world’s most impactful invention.