Can You Crack This? The Overlooked Netherlands Creation That Shaped the Contemporary World
There are many contenders for the title of “planet’s greatest innovation.” The wheel. The movable type. The combustion motor.
As per a recent publication, though, that title should go to the mechanised timber mill conceived by Dutch inventor Cornelis Corneliszoon during 1593.
“Prior to automated sawing, building a simple merchant vessel required approximately ten sawyers working over 90 days,” notes Jaime Dávila. “With wind-driven sawmills, an identical quantity of processed timber might be produced in less than seven days.”
Owing to this rapid automated saw, which converted logs into planks using virtually no manual labor, Dutch builders were able to build ships more quickly than anyone else, an advantage that unleashed a century of Netherlands maritime, economic and cultural dominance in Europe and the world.
The Original Genuine Manufacturing Device
The inventor's lumber mill, contends the writer, represented “mankind’s initial authentic factory machine.” A windmill turned a gear. A single part converted its circular movement to vertical action for the cutting blade. Another component changed the spinning motion into a sideway’s movement advancing the timber toward the blade. A geared mechanism moved the log forward one precise increment per cycle.
“Each element was modest by itself. Corneliszoon’s genius was to combine them in order that the machine operated in a precisely synchronized sequence, sawing on every descending stroke while advancing on every upward stroke. This constituted an astonishingly intelligent application of fundamental parts.”
Which leads us to today’s challenge. The task is you to reinvent one of the basic concepts behind this historic invention.
Round and Up
Design a machine which converts rotary movement into vertical action. Your available these components exclusively: A spinning wheel. Two pins. Two bars. A “sleeve”, which is a tube or housing into which one of the rods can slide snugly. (Assume you can mount components on a base, so the parts don’t fall down.)
The solution returns at 5pm UK featuring the solution.
Meanwhile, PLEASE NO HINTS. Instead, feel free to propose (less celebrated) contenders as the planet’s most impactful creation.
