Can You Crack It? The Overlooked Dutch Invention Which Shaped the Modern World
One can find many contenders for the designation as “world’s greatest invention.” The wheel. The printing press. The steam engine.
As per a new book, though, that title belongs to the mechanised sawmill invented by Dutch inventor Cornelis Corneliszoon during 1593.
“Before mechanised sawing, building a modest merchant vessel necessitated around 10 lumberjacks laboring over 90 days,” notes Jaime Dávila. “With wind-powered lumber mills, an identical amount of processed timber could be manufactured in less than a week.”
Owing to their speedy automated saw, that turned timber into boards using almost no manual labor, the Dutch could construct ships more quickly than any other nation, which sparked one hundred years of Netherlands naval, economic and cultural dominance in Europe and the globe.
The Original Genuine Industrial Machine
Corneliszoon’s sawmill, argues Dávila, represented “humanity’s initial true factory machine.” A windmill turned a wheel. One component transformed the rotary movement to up-and-down motion to power the cutting blade. Another component changed the spinning motion into a sideway’s motion advancing the log to the blade. A geared mechanism moved the log forward one precise increment per stroke.
“Each element seemed modest on its own. The Dutchman’s genius was to integrate them so the machine acted within a precisely synchronized order, cutting with each downward stroke while moving with each upward motion. It was an astonishingly clever application of basic parts.”
Which brings us to today’s challenge. The task is you to reinvent one of the basic ideas underpinning this historic machine.
Circular to Vertical
Design a machine that turns rotary motion to up-and-down action. Your available these items exclusively: A spinning wheel. Two pegs. Two rods. A “guide”, which is a tube or sleeve through which a single the bars will fit snugly. (Consider that it is possible to put things on a stand, so that the parts do not fall down.)
The solution returns later today UK time featuring the solution.
Meanwhile, PLEASE NO HINTS. Instead, feel free to propose (non obvious) contenders as the planet’s most impactful invention.
