Can You Crack It? The Overlooked Dutch Creation Which Shaped our Modern Globe
There are numerous contenders to claim the title of “world’s greatest invention.” The wheel. The printing press. The combustion motor.
As per a recent publication, however, that honor should go to the mechanised sawmill conceived by Dutchman Cornelis Corneliszoon in 1593.
“Prior to mechanised sawing, constructing a modest trading ship required approximately 10 sawyers working for three months,” writes the author. “Using wind-driven sawmills, an identical amount of processed timber might be manufactured in less than seven days.”
Thanks to their rapid mechanical saw, which turned logs into boards using almost no human effort, the Dutch could build ships more quickly compared to any other nation, an advantage that unleashed one hundred years of Dutch naval, financial and artistic supremacy across Europe and the globe.
The Original True Industrial Machine
The inventor's lumber mill, argues the writer, was “mankind’s initial authentic factory machine.” A wind turbine rotated a gear. A single part converted its circular motion into vertical action for the saw. Another component changed that same rotary movement into a sideway’s movement feeding the log toward the cutter. A ratchet system moved the log forward one precise increment each stroke.
“Each element was modest on its own. Corneliszoon’s brilliance was to integrate them so the machine operated within a precisely synchronized sequence, cutting with each descending stroke while advancing on every upward motion. This constituted an astonishingly intelligent application of fundamental parts.”
A fact that leads us up to today’s challenge. The task is you to reinvent one of the fundamental concepts underpinning Corneliszoon’s invention.
Round and Up
Design a machine which converts rotary movement to up-and-down motion. You have these components exclusively: A spinning wheel. Two pins. Two rods. A “guide”, which is a tube or housing into which a single the bars can slide perfectly. (Consider that it is possible to put things on a base, so that the components do not collapse.)
I’ll be back at 5pm UK featuring the solution.
Meanwhile, PLEASE NO HINTS. Instead, please propose (non obvious) contenders for the world’s greatest creation.
