Are You Able to Crack This? That Forgotten Dutch Invention Which Shaped the Contemporary Globe

One can find numerous candidates for the title of “planet’s most significant invention.” The circular axle. The movable type. The steam engine.

As per a new book, though, that title belongs to the automated sawmill invented by Dutch inventor Corneliszoon van Uitgeest in 1593.

“Prior to mechanised cutting, building a modest trading ship necessitated around 10 sawyers working for 90 days,” writes the author. “Using wind-powered lumber mills, an identical quantity of processed timber could be manufactured in less than seven days.”

Owing to this speedy automated cutter, that turned logs into planks using virtually no manual labor, Dutch builders were able to build ships faster compared to any other nation, an advantage that sparked one hundred years of Dutch naval, financial and cultural supremacy in the continent and the globe.

The Original True Manufacturing Device

Corneliszoon’s lumber mill, argues the writer, was “humanity’s first true industrial apparatus.” A wind turbine rotated a wheel. A single part transformed the circular movement to up-and-down action for the cutting blade. Another component changed that same rotary movement into a sideway’s motion advancing the timber to the cutter. A geared mechanism shifted the wood forward one precise increment per cycle.

“Every component was simple by itself. Corneliszoon’s genius lay in how to integrate these parts so the machine acted within a perfectly controlled order, sawing on every descending stroke and moving on every return motion. It was an astonishingly clever application of basic parts.”

A fact that brings us up to today’s puzzle. The task is you to reimagine one of the basic concepts underpinning this historic machine.

Round and Up

Construct a machine that turns rotary motion to up-and-down motion. You have these items only: A spinning wheel. Two pegs. Two bars. A “sleeve”, which is a cylinder or sleeve into which a single the bars will fit snugly. (Assume it is possible to mount components on a stand, so that the components do not collapse.)

The solution returns at 5pm UK time with the solution.

Meanwhile, NO SPOILERS. Rather, please propose (less celebrated) contenders for the planet’s most impactful creation.