Are You Able to Crack This? That Overlooked Dutch Creation Which Forged the Modern World

One can find numerous candidates to claim the designation as “world’s greatest innovation.” The wheel. The movable type. The steam engine.

According to a new book, though, that title should go to the automated timber mill conceived through Dutch inventor Cornelis Corneliszoon in 1593.

“Before automated sawing, building a simple trading ship necessitated approximately ten sawyers working over three months,” notes Jaime Dávila. “Using wind-driven sawmills, an identical quantity of processed timber could be manufactured in less than a week.”

Owing to their rapid mechanical cutter, that turned logs into boards using almost no human effort, the Dutch were able to construct vessels more quickly compared to any other nation, which sparked a century of Netherlands naval, economic and cultural supremacy across the continent and the globe.

The First Genuine Industrial Device

The inventor's sawmill, argues the writer, was “mankind’s initial authentic factory apparatus.” A windmill turned a gear. A single part transformed its rotary motion into vertical motion for the cutting blade. Another component changed the spinning movement into a sideway’s motion feeding the timber toward the blade. A geared mechanism shifted the log forward a measured step each cycle.

“Every component seemed modest on its own. The Dutchman’s genius lay in how to integrate them so the machine operated in a precisely synchronized sequence, cutting on every descending motion while moving with each return motion. It was a remarkably intelligent use of fundamental parts.”

Which leads us to today’s challenge. The task is you to reinvent one of the basic ideas behind Corneliszoon’s invention.

Round and Up

Construct a mechanism that turns rotary motion to up-and-down motion. Your available these items only: A rotating disc. Two pins. Two bars. A “sleeve”, that is a tube or housing through which one of the rods will fit perfectly. (Consider that it is possible to put things on a stand, so that the parts don’t fall down.)

I’ll be back later today UK time with the answer.

Meanwhile, PLEASE NO HINTS. Instead, please propose (less celebrated) candidates for the planet’s greatest creation.