Are You Able to Crack It? That Forgotten Netherlands Invention Which Forged the Modern Globe
There are many contenders for the title of “world’s greatest innovation.” The wheel. The printing press. The steam engine.
As per a recent publication, though, that honor should go to the automated sawmill conceived through Dutch inventor Cornelis Corneliszoon in 1593.
“Prior to mechanised sawing, constructing a simple merchant vessel required approximately ten lumberjacks laboring for 90 days,” notes the author. “Using wind-powered sawmills, the same quantity of cut lumber could be produced in less than seven days.”
Owing to their rapid mechanical cutter, that converted timber into planks with almost no manual labor, the Dutch were able to construct vessels faster than any other nation, which sparked a century of Netherlands maritime, economic and artistic dominance across the continent and the globe.
The First Genuine Manufacturing Device
The inventor's sawmill, argues the writer, was “mankind’s initial authentic factory apparatus.” A wind turbine rotated a wheel. One component converted the rotary movement to vertical motion for the saw. Another component changed the spinning movement into a lateral movement advancing the log toward the cutter. A geared mechanism moved the wood ahead a measured step per stroke.
“Every component seemed simple by itself. Corneliszoon’s brilliance was to combine these parts in order that they acted within a precisely synchronized sequence, sawing on every downward stroke and moving on every return motion. It was a remarkably clever use of basic components.”
A fact that leads us to the current challenge. I’d like you to reimagine a key the fundamental ideas behind this historic machine.
Round and Up
Design a mechanism which converts rotary motion to up-and-down action. Your available these items only: A rotating disc. Two pins. Two rods. A “guide”, that is a tube or housing through which one of the rods will fit snugly. (Assume you can mount components on a stand, so that the parts do not fall down.)
The solution returns at 5pm UK time featuring the solution.
Meanwhile, PLEASE NO HINTS. Rather, please propose (less celebrated) contenders for the planet’s greatest invention.
