🔗 Share this article Are You Able to Crack This? That Forgotten Netherlands Creation Which Shaped the Contemporary World There are many candidates for the designation as “planet’s most significant invention.” The wheel. The printing press. The combustion motor. As per a recent publication, however, that title belongs to a automated timber mill conceived through Dutchman Cornelis Corneliszoon during 1593. “Prior to mechanised cutting, building a simple trading ship required around 10 lumberjacks laboring for three months,” notes Jaime Dávila. “Using wind-driven sawmills, the same amount of cut lumber might be produced within a week.” Owing to their rapid mechanical saw, that converted timber to boards with virtually no manual labor, the Dutch could build ships more quickly compared to any other nation, which sparked a century of Netherlands maritime, financial as well as artistic supremacy in the continent and the globe. The First Genuine Industrial Machine Corneliszoon’s sawmill, argues Dávila, represented “humanity’s initial true industrial machine.” A windmill rotated a gear. A single part converted the circular motion to vertical motion to power the cutting blade. A separate mechanism changed the spinning movement into a lateral motion feeding the log to the cutter. A geared mechanism moved the log forward a measured step each stroke. “Each element was modest on its own. The Dutchman’s genius was to combine these parts in order that they acted within a precisely synchronized order, sawing with each downward motion and moving on every upward stroke. This constituted a remarkably intelligent application of fundamental components.” A fact that leads us up to today’s challenge. I’d like for you to reinvent a key the basic concepts underpinning Corneliszoon’s invention. Round and Up Design a mechanism that turns rotary motion to up-and-down action. You have these items only: A rotating disc. Two pins. Two rods. A “sleeve”, that is a tube or housing through which one of the rods can slide perfectly. (Consider that it is possible to put things on a base, so the components don’t fall down.) I’ll be back at 5pm UK featuring the solution. In the interim, PLEASE NO HINTS. Instead, feel free to propose (non obvious) contenders for the planet’s most impactful invention.