Are You Able to Solve It? That Forgotten Netherlands Invention That Shaped the Modern World
There are numerous contenders to claim the title of “planet’s greatest innovation.” The wheel. The printing press. The steam engine.
According to a recent publication, though, that title belongs to a mechanised sawmill invented by Dutch inventor Corneliszoon van Uitgeest in 1593.
“Prior to automated cutting, building a simple trading ship required approximately ten lumberjacks working over three months,” notes Jaime Dávila. “Using wind-driven sawmills, an identical quantity of cut lumber could be produced in less than a week.”
Thanks to this rapid automated cutter, which converted timber into planks using almost no manual labor, the Dutch could construct ships faster compared to anyone else, an advantage that unleashed a century of Dutch maritime, economic as well as artistic supremacy in the continent and the world.
The First True Manufacturing Machine
The inventor's sawmill, argues Dávila, represented “humanity’s first true factory machine.” A windmill turned a wheel. One component transformed its circular motion to up-and-down motion to power the saw. A separate mechanism transformed that same spinning movement into a sideway’s movement feeding the log toward the blade. A ratchet system shifted the log ahead a measured step each cycle.
“Every component was modest by itself. Corneliszoon’s genius was to integrate them so the machine operated within a precisely synchronized order, cutting on every descending motion and moving with each upward motion. This constituted an astonishingly intelligent application of basic components.”
A fact that leads us to today’s challenge. The task is you to reimagine one of the basic concepts behind this historic invention.
Circular to Vertical
Construct a machine which converts rotary movement to up-and-down motion. Your available these components only: A rotating disc. Two pins. Two rods. A “sleeve”, that is a cylinder or housing through which one of the rods can slide perfectly. (Consider that you can put things on a base, so that the parts do not collapse.)
The solution returns later today UK with the answer.
In the interim, NO SPOILERS. Rather, feel free to propose (non obvious) contenders for the planet’s greatest invention.
