Are You Able to Solve This? That Overlooked Netherlands Creation Which Shaped our Contemporary Globe
There are numerous contenders to claim the title of “planet’s greatest invention.” The wheel. The printing press. The combustion motor.
As per a recent publication, though, that title should go to a mechanised timber mill conceived through Dutchman Corneliszoon van Uitgeest during 1593.
“Prior to mechanised sawing, building a simple merchant vessel required approximately 10 lumberjacks laboring over three months,” writes Jaime Dávila. “Using wind-powered lumber mills, the same amount of processed timber might be produced within a week.”
Thanks to their speedy automated cutter, that turned logs to boards with almost no manual labor, the Dutch were able to construct ships faster than any other nation, an advantage that sparked one hundred years of Netherlands maritime, financial as well as cultural supremacy in the continent and the globe.
The First True Industrial Machine
The inventor's sawmill, contends the writer, was “mankind’s first true factory apparatus.” A wind turbine turned a wheel. One component transformed the rotary motion into vertical motion to power the cutting blade. Another component changed that same spinning motion into a lateral movement feeding the log to the cutter. A geared mechanism moved the log forward one precise increment per stroke.
“Every component was modest on its own. The Dutchman’s genius was to combine them so they operated in a perfectly controlled order, sawing on every descending stroke while moving with each return motion. It was a remarkably clever application of basic components.”
Which brings us up to the current challenge. The task is you to reimagine a key the fundamental ideas underpinning Corneliszoon’s machine.
Round and Up
Design a machine that turns circular movement to up-and-down action. Your available these items exclusively: A spinning wheel. Two pegs. Two rods. A “sleeve”, that is a tube or sleeve through which one of the rods will fit perfectly. (Consider that it is possible to put things on a base, so the components do not fall down.)
The solution returns later today UK featuring the solution.
In the interim, NO SPOILERS. Rather, feel free to suggest (less celebrated) contenders as the planet’s greatest creation.
