Can You Solve It? The Forgotten Netherlands Invention Which Shaped our Modern World

There are numerous contenders to claim the designation as “planet’s most significant innovation.” The wheel. The movable type. The steam engine.

As per a recent publication, however, that honor belongs to the automated sawmill conceived by Dutchman Cornelis Corneliszoon during 1593.

“Prior to mechanised cutting, constructing a simple merchant vessel required approximately 10 sawyers laboring for three months,” writes Jaime Dávila. “With wind-powered sawmills, the same amount of processed timber could be produced in less than a week.”

Thanks to this speedy automated saw, which turned timber into planks with virtually no manual labor, Dutch builders were able to build vessels more quickly than anyone else, which unleashed one hundred years of Netherlands maritime, financial as well as cultural supremacy in Europe and the globe.

The First Genuine Manufacturing Machine

The inventor's lumber mill, argues the writer, was “mankind’s initial authentic factory apparatus.” A windmill turned a wheel. A single part transformed its rotary motion into up-and-down motion for the saw. A separate mechanism changed that same spinning movement into a sideway’s movement advancing the log toward the cutter. A ratchet system shifted the wood forward a measured step each stroke.

“Each element seemed modest by itself. Corneliszoon’s genius lay in how to combine them so they operated in a precisely synchronized sequence, sawing on every downward motion and moving with each return motion. It was an astonishingly intelligent application of basic parts.”

A fact that brings us to the current challenge. I’d like you to reinvent a key the fundamental concepts underpinning this historic invention.

Round and Up

Design a mechanism which converts circular movement into vertical action. You have these items only: A rotating disc. Two pins. Two rods. A “sleeve”, that 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 the parts do not fall down.)

The solution returns later today UK with the answer.

Meanwhile, PLEASE NO HINTS. Rather, please suggest (less celebrated) contenders for the world’s most impactful invention.