Are You Able to Solve This? The Overlooked Netherlands Creation That Shaped the Modern World
There are many contenders for the designation as “world’s most significant innovation.” The circular axle. The printing press. The combustion motor.
As per a recent publication, though, that honor belongs to the automated sawmill invented through Dutch inventor Corneliszoon van Uitgeest in 1593.
“Before mechanised cutting, constructing a modest merchant vessel necessitated around ten sawyers working over 90 days,” writes Jaime Dávila. “Using wind-powered sawmills, the same amount of cut lumber could be manufactured within seven days.”
Owing to this speedy mechanical cutter, which turned logs to boards using almost no manual labor, the Dutch could construct ships more quickly than anyone else, which unleashed a century of Netherlands naval, economic and cultural dominance in the continent and the globe.
The First Genuine Manufacturing Machine
The inventor's lumber mill, argues Dávila, was “humanity’s first true industrial apparatus.” A windmill turned a wheel. One component converted the rotary motion into up-and-down action to power the cutting blade. Another component transformed the spinning motion into a lateral movement advancing the log to the blade. A geared mechanism moved the wood ahead a measured step per cycle.
“Every component was modest on its own. The Dutchman’s brilliance was to integrate these parts so they acted in a precisely synchronized sequence, cutting on every downward motion while moving on every return motion. It was a remarkably clever use of fundamental parts.”
A fact that brings us to the current challenge. The task is you to reimagine one of the basic ideas behind this historic invention.
Circular to Vertical
Construct a machine which converts circular motion to vertical action. You have these items exclusively: A spinning wheel. Two pins. Two bars. A “guide”, that is a tube or sleeve into which a single the bars can slide perfectly. (Consider that it is possible to put things on a base, so that the parts do not fall down.)
The solution returns at 5pm UK with the answer.
In the interim, PLEASE NO HINTS. Rather, feel free to suggest (less celebrated) contenders as the planet’s most impactful invention.
