Are You Able to Crack It? That Overlooked Dutch Creation That Shaped the Contemporary Globe
One can find numerous contenders for the designation as “planet’s greatest innovation.” The circular axle. The printing press. The combustion motor.
As per a recent publication, however, that honor belongs to the mechanised sawmill conceived through Dutchman Corneliszoon van Uitgeest in 1593.
“Before mechanised cutting, building a simple trading ship necessitated around 10 lumberjacks working over 90 days,” notes the author. “Using wind-powered sawmills, an identical amount of processed timber might be manufactured within a week.”
Thanks to their rapid mechanical saw, that converted logs into planks using almost no human effort, the Dutch could build ships faster compared to any other nation, which sparked a century of Dutch maritime, financial and cultural supremacy across Europe and the globe.
The Original True Industrial Machine
Corneliszoon’s lumber mill, contends the writer, represented “humanity’s first true factory machine.” A wind turbine rotated a wheel. A single part converted the rotary movement into up-and-down action for the saw. Another component changed that same spinning movement into a sideway’s motion feeding the log toward the cutter. A geared mechanism shifted the wood ahead one precise increment per cycle.
“Every component seemed modest on its own. Corneliszoon’s brilliance was to combine them in order that the machine acted in a precisely synchronized order, sawing on every downward motion and advancing with each return stroke. It was an astonishingly clever use of fundamental components.”
A fact that leads us up to the current challenge. I’d like you to reinvent one of the fundamental concepts behind this historic machine.
Round and Up
Construct a machine that turns rotary motion into up-and-down motion. Your available these components only: A spinning wheel. Two pegs. Two bars. A “guide”, which is a cylinder or housing through which one of the bars will fit perfectly. (Assume it is possible to mount components on a base, so the parts do not fall down.)
I’ll be back later today UK featuring the answer.
Meanwhile, PLEASE NO HINTS. Instead, please suggest (less celebrated) candidates for the world’s most impactful creation.