Are You Able to Crack It? The Forgotten Dutch Creation That Shaped our Modern World
There are many candidates to claim the designation as “planet’s most significant innovation.” The wheel. The movable type. The combustion motor.
As per a new book, however, that title belongs to a mechanised sawmill conceived through Dutchman Corneliszoon van Uitgeest in 1593.
“Prior to mechanised cutting, building a simple trading ship necessitated approximately ten lumberjacks laboring for three months,” notes the author. “Using wind-powered lumber mills, the same quantity of cut lumber might be produced in less than a week.”
Thanks to this speedy mechanical cutter, that turned logs into planks with virtually no manual labor, Dutch builders were able to construct ships faster than any other nation, which unleashed one hundred years of Netherlands naval, financial as well as artistic supremacy in the continent and the globe.
The First True Industrial Machine
The inventor's lumber mill, contends the writer, was “mankind’s first true factory machine.” A windmill rotated a wheel. One component converted its circular motion into up-and-down action to power the saw. A separate mechanism changed the spinning movement into a sideway’s motion advancing the timber toward the cutter. A ratchet system moved the log ahead a measured step per cycle.
“Each element seemed simple by itself. The Dutchman’s brilliance was to integrate these parts so the machine operated within a perfectly controlled order, sawing with each descending stroke while advancing with each return stroke. This constituted a remarkably clever use of fundamental components.”
Which leads us up to today’s challenge. The task is you to reimagine one of the basic concepts behind Corneliszoon’s invention.
Circular to Vertical
Design a machine that turns rotary movement to vertical motion. You have these components exclusively: A spinning wheel. Two pegs. Two bars. A “guide”, that is a cylinder or housing through which one of the rods will fit snugly. (Consider that it is possible to mount components on a base, so that the components do not collapse.)
I’ll be back at 5pm UK time with the solution.
In the interim, PLEASE NO HINTS. Rather, feel free to suggest (non obvious) contenders as the planet’s greatest creation.
