Are You Able to Crack This? The Forgotten Dutch Creation Which Shaped the Modern Globe
One can find many contenders for the title of “planet’s greatest innovation.” The wheel. The movable type. The steam engine.
According to a recent publication, though, that title should go to a mechanised sawmill conceived through Dutch inventor Cornelis Corneliszoon during 1593.
“Before mechanised sawing, constructing a modest merchant vessel required around ten sawyers laboring for 90 days,” notes the author. “With wind-powered lumber mills, the same quantity of processed timber could be manufactured in less than a week.”
Thanks to their rapid automated saw, which turned timber into boards with virtually no manual labor, Dutch builders were able to construct ships more quickly than any other nation, which unleashed one hundred years of Dutch maritime, economic as well as cultural supremacy across the continent and the globe.
The First Genuine Industrial Device
Corneliszoon’s lumber mill, argues Dávila, represented “humanity’s initial authentic factory machine.” A windmill turned a gear. One component converted the rotary motion to vertical motion to power the cutting blade. Another component changed the spinning movement into a lateral motion advancing the timber toward the blade. A ratchet system moved the log ahead a measured step each stroke.
“Every component seemed simple on its own. The Dutchman’s genius was to combine them so the machine acted in a precisely synchronized order, cutting with each descending motion and advancing on every return stroke. This constituted a remarkably intelligent application of basic parts.”
Which brings us to the current challenge. The task is you to reimagine a key the basic concepts behind Corneliszoon’s machine.
Circular to Vertical
Design a mechanism that turns rotary motion into vertical motion. Your available these components exclusively: A rotating disc. Two pins. Two bars. A “sleeve”, which is a tube or housing into which one of the bars will fit perfectly. (Consider that you can mount components on a stand, so the parts don’t collapse.)
The solution returns later today UK time featuring the answer.
Meanwhile, PLEASE NO HINTS. Instead, please suggest (less celebrated) candidates as the world’s greatest creation.
