Can You Crack It? The Forgotten Dutch Creation Which Forged the Contemporary World

One can find many contenders to claim the title of “world’s greatest innovation.” The circular axle. The printing press. The steam engine.

According to a recent publication, though, that title should go to the automated sawmill conceived through Dutchman Cornelis Corneliszoon during 1593.

“Prior to automated cutting, building a simple merchant vessel necessitated approximately ten sawyers laboring over 90 days,” writes the author. “Using wind-driven lumber mills, the same quantity of cut lumber could be manufactured in less than a week.”

Thanks to their speedy mechanical saw, which converted logs into planks with almost no manual labor, the Dutch were able to build vessels faster than anyone else, which sparked a century of Dutch naval, financial and artistic dominance across the continent and the globe.

The Original Genuine Manufacturing Device

Corneliszoon’s lumber mill, contends Dávila, represented “humanity’s initial authentic factory machine.” A windmill turned a gear. One component transformed the rotary motion to up-and-down motion to power the saw. Another component transformed that same spinning motion into a lateral motion advancing the log toward the blade. A ratchet system moved the log forward a measured step per cycle.

“Every component seemed modest on its own. Corneliszoon’s genius lay in how to integrate these parts in order that the machine acted in a perfectly controlled sequence, sawing with each downward motion while moving on every upward stroke. This constituted a remarkably clever application of basic parts.”

A fact that leads us to the current puzzle. The task is for you to reimagine one of the basic concepts behind this historic machine.

Round and Up

Design a mechanism that turns circular movement to vertical action. Your available these items exclusively: A rotating disc. Two pins. Two bars. A “sleeve”, that is a cylinder or sleeve into which a single the rods can slide snugly. (Assume it is possible to mount components on a base, so the parts do not collapse.)

I’ll be back at 5pm UK time with the solution.

In the interim, NO SPOILERS. Rather, please propose (non obvious) candidates as the world’s most impactful invention.