Can You Crack It? The Overlooked Dutch Invention That Forged our Modern Globe
One can find numerous contenders for the designation as “world’s greatest innovation.” The wheel. The printing press. The combustion motor.
According to a recent publication, though, that honor belongs to the mechanised timber mill invented by Dutchman Corneliszoon van Uitgeest during 1593.
“Before mechanised cutting, constructing a modest merchant vessel required around ten sawyers working over three months,” writes the author. “With wind-driven lumber mills, an identical quantity of cut lumber might be manufactured in less than seven days.”
Owing to this speedy mechanical saw, that converted logs to planks with almost no manual labor, Dutch builders were able to build vessels faster compared to anyone else, an advantage that unleashed a century of Dutch maritime, economic and cultural supremacy across the continent and the globe.
The Original Genuine Manufacturing Device
The inventor's lumber mill, argues the writer, represented “mankind’s initial authentic industrial apparatus.” A windmill rotated a wheel. A single part converted the rotary movement into up-and-down action for the cutting blade. A separate mechanism changed that same rotary movement into a sideway’s movement feeding the log to the cutter. A geared mechanism moved the log ahead one precise increment per stroke.
“Each element was simple by itself. The Dutchman’s genius lay in how to combine them so they acted within a precisely synchronized sequence, sawing with each downward motion and moving on every return stroke. It was a remarkably intelligent application of basic parts.”
A fact that brings us to the current challenge. The task is you to reimagine one of the fundamental concepts underpinning this historic machine.
Circular to Vertical
Construct a mechanism which converts circular motion to vertical motion. Your available these components exclusively: A spinning wheel. Two pins. Two bars. A “sleeve”, that is a tube or housing through which a single the rods can slide perfectly. (Assume you can mount components on a base, so the components do not collapse.)
I’ll be back at 5pm UK featuring the solution.
Meanwhile, NO SPOILERS. Instead, please suggest (non obvious) contenders for the planet’s most impactful creation.
