Can You Crack This? That Overlooked Netherlands Creation That Forged the Modern World
One can find numerous contenders to claim the title of “world’s greatest innovation.” The circular axle. The movable type. The steam engine.
According to a recent publication, though, that title belongs to a automated sawmill conceived by Dutchman Corneliszoon van Uitgeest in 1593.
“Before automated cutting, constructing a simple trading ship required approximately 10 lumberjacks working for three months,” writes Jaime Dávila. “With wind-powered lumber mills, an identical amount of processed timber could be produced within seven days.”
Thanks to their rapid automated saw, which turned logs to boards with virtually no manual labor, Dutch builders could build vessels more quickly compared to anyone else, an advantage that unleashed one hundred years of Dutch naval, financial and cultural dominance in Europe and the globe.
The First Genuine Manufacturing Device
The inventor's lumber mill, contends the writer, represented “mankind’s first true industrial machine.” A wind turbine turned a gear. A single part transformed the rotary movement into vertical action for the cutting blade. A separate mechanism changed that same rotary motion into a sideway’s motion advancing the timber toward the blade. A geared mechanism moved the log forward one precise increment each stroke.
“Every component was simple by itself. The Dutchman’s brilliance was to combine them in order that the machine acted in a perfectly controlled sequence, cutting on every downward stroke and advancing on every return stroke. It was an astonishingly clever use of basic parts.”
Which brings us to the current challenge. The task is you to reimagine one of the fundamental concepts underpinning Corneliszoon’s invention.
Round and Up
Design a mechanism which converts circular movement into vertical motion. Your available these components exclusively: A rotating disc. Two pins. Two bars. A “sleeve”, that is a cylinder or sleeve into which a single the rods can slide perfectly. (Assume it is possible to put things on a base, so that the components do not collapse.)
I’ll be back at 5pm UK featuring the answer.
Meanwhile, PLEASE NO HINTS. Instead, please propose (non obvious) candidates as the planet’s greatest creation.
