Are You Able to Solve It? The Overlooked Dutch Creation That Forged the Contemporary Globe
There are many candidates for the designation as “planet’s most significant invention.” The wheel. The movable type. The combustion motor.
According to a new book, though, that honor belongs to the automated timber mill conceived through Dutchman Corneliszoon van Uitgeest in 1593.
“Prior to automated sawing, constructing a simple merchant vessel required approximately ten lumberjacks working over 90 days,” writes Jaime Dávila. “With wind-driven sawmills, an identical amount of cut lumber might be produced in less than a week.”
Owing to their rapid automated cutter, which converted logs to boards with virtually no manual labor, the Dutch could construct vessels more quickly than anyone else, which sparked a century of Dutch maritime, economic and artistic dominance across the continent and the world.
The First True Manufacturing Device
The inventor's lumber mill, argues Dávila, was “humanity’s initial true industrial machine.” A wind turbine turned a wheel. One component transformed its rotary motion into up-and-down motion to power the cutting blade. A separate mechanism changed the rotary movement into a lateral movement advancing the timber to the blade. A ratchet system moved the log ahead a measured step per stroke.
“Each element was simple by itself. Corneliszoon’s genius was to combine these parts so they operated in a perfectly controlled order, cutting with each descending stroke and moving on every upward stroke. This constituted a remarkably clever use of basic components.”
Which leads us up to today’s challenge. The task is for you to reimagine a key the basic concepts underpinning this historic invention.
Circular to Vertical
Construct a mechanism which converts circular movement into vertical action. Your available these items exclusively: A rotating disc. Two pegs. Two rods. A “sleeve”, which is a cylinder or housing through which one of the rods will fit perfectly. (Assume it is possible to mount components on a stand, so the parts don’t fall down.)
I’ll be back at 5pm UK with the answer.
In the interim, PLEASE NO HINTS. Rather, feel free to propose (non obvious) contenders for the planet’s most impactful invention.
