Are You Able to Solve It? The Overlooked Netherlands Creation That Shaped our Contemporary Globe
One can find numerous contenders for the designation as “planet’s greatest innovation.” The wheel. The printing press. The steam engine.
As per a new book, however, that honor should go to a automated timber mill invented through Dutch inventor Cornelis Corneliszoon in 1593.
“Before automated sawing, building a simple merchant vessel necessitated approximately ten lumberjacks laboring for 90 days,” writes the author. “Using wind-driven lumber mills, an identical amount of processed timber might be produced in less than seven days.”
Thanks to this rapid automated cutter, which converted logs to boards with almost no human effort, the Dutch could construct vessels more quickly than anyone else, an advantage that unleashed one hundred years of Netherlands maritime, financial and cultural dominance across the continent and the globe.
The Original Genuine Manufacturing Device
The inventor's sawmill, argues the writer, was “mankind’s initial authentic industrial apparatus.” A windmill rotated a wheel. A single part converted the circular motion to vertical motion to power the saw. A separate mechanism changed that same spinning motion into a sideway’s movement feeding the timber to the cutter. A geared mechanism moved the wood forward a measured step per stroke.
“Every component was simple by itself. Corneliszoon’s brilliance lay in how to combine them in order that the machine acted within a precisely synchronized sequence, sawing with each downward stroke and moving on every return stroke. It was a remarkably intelligent use of fundamental parts.”
Which leads us to the current challenge. The task is for you to reimagine one of the fundamental ideas underpinning this historic invention.
Circular to Vertical
Design a machine that turns circular movement to up-and-down action. Your available these items only: A spinning wheel. Two pins. Two bars. A “guide”, that is a cylinder or sleeve into which a single the rods will fit perfectly. (Assume it is possible to mount components on a base, so the parts don’t collapse.)
The solution returns at 5pm UK with the solution.
Meanwhile, NO SPOILERS. Rather, feel free to propose (less celebrated) candidates as the planet’s greatest invention.
