Can You Solve It? The Forgotten Netherlands Creation Which Shaped the Modern Globe
There are many contenders for the title of “planet’s most significant innovation.” The wheel. The movable type. The steam engine.
As per a recent publication, however, that title should go to a automated timber mill invented through Dutchman Corneliszoon van Uitgeest in 1593.
“Before automated sawing, building a simple trading ship required around ten lumberjacks working for three months,” notes Jaime Dávila. “With wind-powered sawmills, the same amount of processed timber could be manufactured in less than a week.”
Owing to their speedy automated cutter, which converted logs to boards using almost no manual labor, Dutch builders were able to construct vessels more quickly compared to any other nation, an advantage that unleashed a century of Dutch maritime, economic as well as cultural dominance in Europe and the world.
The First True Manufacturing Machine
The inventor's sawmill, contends Dávila, was “humanity’s first true industrial machine.” A wind turbine rotated a gear. A single part converted its circular movement to up-and-down action for the saw. Another component changed that same spinning motion into a lateral motion feeding the log to the cutter. A ratchet system shifted the log forward a measured step each stroke.
“Every component was modest on its own. Corneliszoon’s brilliance was to integrate them so the machine operated within a precisely synchronized order, sawing with each descending motion and moving on every upward stroke. It was an astonishingly clever application of basic parts.”
A fact that leads us to today’s challenge. The task is you to reinvent one of the basic ideas underpinning this historic machine.
Circular to Vertical
Construct a machine which converts circular movement to vertical motion. You have these items only: A rotating disc. Two pegs. Two rods. A “sleeve”, that is a cylinder or sleeve into which one of the bars can slide perfectly. (Assume it is possible to put things on a stand, so that the components do not fall down.)
The solution returns at 5pm UK featuring the solution.
In the interim, NO SPOILERS. Rather, feel free to suggest (non obvious) contenders as the world’s greatest creation.
