Can You Solve It? That Overlooked Dutch Invention That Shaped our Modern World
One can find many candidates to claim the designation as “world’s greatest innovation.” The wheel. The movable type. The steam engine.
As per a new book, though, that title should go to a automated timber mill conceived by Dutch inventor Corneliszoon van Uitgeest during 1593.
“Prior to automated sawing, building a modest merchant vessel required approximately 10 sawyers laboring for three months,” writes the author. “Using wind-powered sawmills, an identical quantity of processed timber might be manufactured within a week.”
Owing to this speedy automated saw, that converted logs into planks using almost no human effort, Dutch builders were able to build vessels faster compared to anyone else, which unleashed a century of Netherlands naval, financial and artistic dominance across Europe and the world.
The Original Genuine Industrial Machine
Corneliszoon’s lumber mill, contends the writer, was “humanity’s first true factory apparatus.” A wind turbine rotated a gear. One component converted its rotary motion to vertical motion to power the saw. A separate mechanism transformed that same spinning motion into a lateral movement advancing the timber to the cutter. A geared mechanism shifted the log ahead a measured step each stroke.
“Each element seemed modest by itself. Corneliszoon’s genius lay in how to integrate them in order that they acted in a precisely synchronized sequence, cutting with each descending motion while advancing on every upward stroke. It was a remarkably intelligent use of fundamental parts.”
A fact that brings us to today’s challenge. I’d like you to reimagine a key the basic ideas underpinning this historic invention.
Round and Up
Design a machine which converts rotary motion into vertical motion. You have these components exclusively: A spinning wheel. Two pegs. Two bars. A “sleeve”, that is a tube or sleeve through which one of the rods will fit snugly. (Consider that you can mount components on a stand, so that the components do not fall down.)
The solution returns at 5pm UK featuring the solution.
Meanwhile, PLEASE NO HINTS. Rather, please suggest (non obvious) contenders for the world’s greatest invention.
