Can You Solve It? That Forgotten Netherlands Invention Which Shaped the Modern World
One can find many candidates for the designation as “world’s greatest innovation.” The wheel. The movable type. The combustion motor.
According to a new book, though, that title belongs to a automated sawmill invented by Dutchman Corneliszoon van Uitgeest during 1593.
“Prior to mechanised sawing, building a simple merchant vessel required approximately 10 sawyers laboring for three months,” notes Jaime Dávila. “With wind-powered lumber mills, the same amount of processed timber could be produced within seven days.”
Thanks to this rapid mechanical saw, that turned timber into planks with virtually no human effort, the Dutch were able to construct vessels faster compared to any other nation, an advantage that sparked a century of Dutch maritime, financial as well as artistic supremacy across the continent and the world.
The First Genuine Manufacturing Device
The inventor's sawmill, contends Dávila, represented “mankind’s first true factory apparatus.” A windmill turned a wheel. One component converted the rotary motion into up-and-down action to power the cutting blade. Another component changed that same rotary motion into a sideway’s movement feeding the log toward the cutter. A ratchet system moved the wood ahead a measured step each cycle.
“Each element was simple by itself. Corneliszoon’s brilliance was to combine them in order that the machine acted in a precisely synchronized sequence, cutting on every descending stroke and moving on every upward stroke. It was a remarkably clever use of basic parts.”
Which leads us to today’s challenge. The task is for you to reinvent a key the basic ideas underpinning this historic invention.
Circular to Vertical
Design a mechanism which converts circular movement to up-and-down action. Your available these components only: A rotating disc. Two pegs. Two rods. A “sleeve”, which is a cylinder or sleeve through which one of the rods will fit snugly. (Consider that you can put things on a base, so that the components do not fall down.)
The solution returns at 5pm UK featuring the answer.
In the interim, NO SPOILERS. Instead, feel free to propose (non obvious) contenders as the planet’s most impactful invention.