Can You Solve This? The Forgotten Dutch Creation Which Shaped our Modern Globe
There are numerous contenders for the designation as “world’s most significant innovation.” The circular axle. The movable type. The combustion motor.
As per a new book, though, that honor should go to a automated timber mill conceived by Dutch inventor Corneliszoon van Uitgeest during 1593.
“Prior to mechanised cutting, constructing a simple merchant vessel required around ten sawyers laboring for 90 days,” notes Jaime Dávila. “Using wind-driven sawmills, the same quantity of processed timber could be produced in less than seven days.”
Owing to this rapid automated cutter, that turned timber into boards using virtually no manual labor, the Dutch were able to build vessels more quickly than anyone else, which sparked a century of Netherlands naval, financial and artistic supremacy in the continent and the world.
The Original True Manufacturing Machine
The inventor's lumber mill, argues the writer, was “humanity’s first true factory machine.” A wind turbine turned a gear. One component transformed the rotary movement into up-and-down action to power the saw. A separate mechanism changed that same spinning movement into a lateral movement advancing the timber toward the cutter. A ratchet system moved the log ahead one precise increment each stroke.
“Each element was simple on its own. The Dutchman’s brilliance lay in how to integrate them in order that the machine operated in a perfectly controlled sequence, sawing on every descending stroke and advancing on every upward stroke. This constituted an astonishingly clever application of fundamental parts.”
A fact that brings us to the current challenge. The task is you to reinvent a key the fundamental ideas underpinning this historic machine.
Circular to Vertical
Design a mechanism that turns circular motion into vertical action. You have these items exclusively: A rotating disc. Two pegs. Two rods. A “guide”, that is a tube or housing through which a single the rods will fit snugly. (Consider that it is possible to put things on a base, so that the parts don’t collapse.)
I’ll be back at 5pm UK time with the answer.
In the interim, NO SPOILERS. Instead, please suggest (non obvious) contenders for the world’s most impactful creation.
