Can You Crack This? The Overlooked Netherlands Creation Which Shaped the Contemporary World
One can find numerous contenders for the title of “planet’s greatest innovation.” The circular axle. The printing press. The steam engine.
According to a new book, however, that honor should go to a automated timber mill conceived through Dutch inventor Corneliszoon van Uitgeest during 1593.
“Before automated cutting, constructing a simple merchant vessel required approximately ten lumberjacks laboring for 90 days,” notes the author. “Using wind-powered sawmills, the same amount of cut lumber might be produced in less than a week.”
Thanks to their rapid automated saw, that converted logs to planks with virtually no human effort, the Dutch were able to construct vessels faster than any other nation, which sparked a century of Dutch maritime, economic and cultural supremacy in the continent and the globe.
The First Genuine Industrial Device
Corneliszoon’s sawmill, argues the writer, was “mankind’s initial authentic industrial apparatus.” A windmill rotated a gear. A single part transformed its rotary movement into vertical action for the saw. Another component changed that same spinning movement into a sideway’s movement advancing the log toward the blade. A ratchet system moved the wood ahead a measured step each cycle.
“Every component was simple by itself. The Dutchman’s genius was to integrate these parts so they acted in a perfectly controlled sequence, cutting with each descending stroke and moving on every return motion. This constituted a remarkably clever application of basic parts.”
A fact that brings us up to today’s challenge. The task is for you to reinvent a key the basic concepts behind this historic machine.
Round and Up
Design a machine which converts rotary motion to vertical motion. You have these items exclusively: A spinning wheel. Two pins. Two rods. A “guide”, which is a tube or housing through which a single the rods can slide snugly. (Consider that you can mount components on a base, so that the parts do not collapse.)
The solution returns later today UK with the solution.
In the interim, NO SPOILERS. Instead, please suggest (less celebrated) contenders for the world’s greatest invention.
