Can You Crack This? The Forgotten Dutch Invention That Forged our Contemporary World

One can find numerous candidates to claim the title of “world’s most significant invention.” The circular axle. The printing press. The steam engine.

According to a new book, however, that honor belongs to a mechanised sawmill conceived through Dutchman Corneliszoon van Uitgeest in 1593.

“Before mechanised sawing, constructing a modest trading ship required around ten lumberjacks working for 90 days,” notes Jaime Dávila. “With wind-powered lumber mills, an identical quantity of processed timber might be manufactured within seven days.”

Owing to this rapid mechanical saw, which turned logs to boards using virtually no manual labor, Dutch builders were able to build ships more quickly than any other nation, which unleashed a century of Netherlands maritime, financial and artistic supremacy in the continent and the globe.

The Original Genuine Industrial Machine

The inventor's lumber mill, contends Dávila, represented “mankind’s first true factory apparatus.” A windmill rotated a gear. One component converted the rotary motion to up-and-down motion for the saw. Another component transformed the spinning movement into a lateral motion feeding the log toward the cutter. A geared mechanism shifted the wood forward a measured step each cycle.

“Each element was modest on its own. Corneliszoon’s genius lay in how to integrate these parts in order that the machine operated in a precisely synchronized order, sawing with each downward stroke while moving with each return stroke. This constituted a remarkably intelligent application of basic parts.”

Which leads us to today’s challenge. The task is for you to reimagine a key the basic ideas behind this historic machine.

Circular to Vertical

Design a mechanism which converts circular motion into up-and-down motion. Your available these items exclusively: A spinning wheel. Two pins. Two bars. A “sleeve”, which is a tube or sleeve into which a single the rods will fit perfectly. (Assume it is possible to put things on a base, so the components do not collapse.)

The solution returns at 5pm UK time featuring the solution.

Meanwhile, NO SPOILERS. Rather, please propose (non obvious) candidates as the planet’s most impactful invention.