Are You Able to Solve It? The Forgotten Dutch Invention Which Forged the Contemporary World

One can find numerous contenders for the designation as “world’s most significant innovation.” The wheel. The printing press. The steam engine.

As per a recent publication, however, that honor belongs to the mechanised timber mill conceived through Dutch inventor Corneliszoon van Uitgeest during 1593.

“Before mechanised sawing, building a simple merchant vessel required around ten lumberjacks working over 90 days,” writes Jaime Dávila. “With wind-driven lumber mills, the same quantity of processed timber might be manufactured within a week.”

Owing to this rapid mechanical saw, that turned logs into planks with virtually no manual labor, Dutch builders could construct vessels faster compared to anyone else, which sparked one hundred years of Netherlands maritime, economic as well as artistic dominance across the continent and the world.

The Original True Industrial Device

The inventor's sawmill, contends the writer, was “humanity’s first true factory machine.” A windmill rotated a gear. A single part converted its circular movement to vertical motion for the cutting blade. A separate mechanism transformed the spinning motion into a lateral movement feeding the timber to the blade. A geared mechanism moved the log forward a measured step per stroke.

“Each element seemed simple on its own. Corneliszoon’s genius lay in how to integrate these parts in order that they acted in a precisely synchronized order, sawing on every downward stroke and advancing on every return motion. This constituted a remarkably intelligent application of basic parts.”

A fact that leads us to today’s challenge. I’d like you to reimagine one of the basic concepts underpinning Corneliszoon’s invention.

Round and Up

Design a mechanism which converts rotary motion into up-and-down action. You have these items only: A rotating disc. Two pegs. Two bars. A “sleeve”, which is a cylinder or housing through which a single the bars can slide snugly. (Consider that it is possible to put things on a base, so that the parts don’t fall down.)

The solution returns at 5pm UK featuring the solution.

In the interim, PLEASE NO HINTS. Instead, please suggest (non obvious) contenders for the planet’s most impactful creation.