Are You Able to Crack This? The Forgotten Dutch Creation That Shaped the Modern Globe

There are many contenders for the designation as “planet’s most significant innovation.” The wheel. The printing press. The steam engine.

According to a recent publication, though, that honor belongs to a mechanised sawmill invented through Dutch inventor Corneliszoon van Uitgeest during 1593.

“Before automated sawing, building a modest trading ship necessitated approximately 10 lumberjacks laboring over 90 days,” writes Jaime Dávila. “With wind-powered lumber mills, the same quantity of cut lumber might be manufactured in less than a week.”

Owing to their speedy automated saw, which turned timber into planks using almost no human effort, Dutch builders could build ships more quickly compared to anyone else, an advantage that sparked a century of Dutch naval, economic and artistic supremacy in the continent and the world.

The First True Manufacturing Machine

Corneliszoon’s sawmill, contends Dávila, represented “humanity’s first authentic industrial machine.” A wind turbine rotated a wheel. One component transformed its rotary movement into vertical action for the cutting blade. Another component transformed the spinning movement into a sideway’s motion advancing the timber to the cutter. A ratchet system shifted the log forward one precise increment per stroke.

“Each element seemed simple by itself. Corneliszoon’s brilliance lay in how to integrate them so they operated within a precisely synchronized sequence, cutting on every downward motion and advancing with each upward stroke. It was an astonishingly intelligent use of basic components.”

Which brings us up to the current challenge. I’d like for you to reinvent one of the fundamental concepts underpinning this historic machine.

Round and Up

Design a machine that turns rotary motion to vertical motion. You have these components only: A spinning wheel. Two pegs. Two rods. A “sleeve”, that is a cylinder or sleeve through which a single the bars will fit snugly. (Assume it is possible to put things on a base, so the components do not fall down.)

The solution returns later today UK with the solution.

Meanwhile, NO SPOILERS. Rather, feel free to propose (less celebrated) contenders for the world’s greatest invention.