Are You Able to Solve It? That Forgotten Netherlands Creation Which Shaped the Modern Globe

One can find many candidates for the designation as “planet’s greatest invention.” The circular axle. The printing press. The steam engine.

As per a new book, however, that honor should go to a mechanised timber mill conceived by Dutchman Corneliszoon van Uitgeest during 1593.

“Prior to mechanised cutting, building a modest trading ship required approximately ten lumberjacks laboring for 90 days,” writes Jaime Dávila. “With wind-powered sawmills, an identical quantity of processed timber could be produced in less than a week.”

Owing to this rapid automated saw, which converted timber to boards with almost no human effort, Dutch builders could construct vessels faster than anyone else, which sparked a century of Dutch naval, economic and cultural dominance in Europe and the globe.

The First Genuine Manufacturing Device

Corneliszoon’s sawmill, contends Dávila, was “mankind’s initial authentic industrial apparatus.” A windmill rotated a gear. A single part converted the circular movement into vertical action to power the saw. A separate mechanism transformed the rotary movement into a lateral motion feeding the log toward the cutter. A ratchet system moved the log ahead one precise increment each stroke.

“Every component seemed simple by itself. The Dutchman’s genius lay in how to combine them in order that the machine operated in a perfectly controlled sequence, sawing on every descending motion while advancing on every return stroke. It was an astonishingly clever use of fundamental parts.”

A fact that brings us to the current puzzle. The task is you to reinvent one of the fundamental ideas underpinning this historic invention.

Circular to Vertical

Design a mechanism that turns circular movement to up-and-down motion. You have these components only: A rotating disc. Two pegs. Two rods. A “sleeve”, that is a tube or sleeve through which one of the rods will fit snugly. (Assume you can put things on a base, so the parts don’t collapse.)

The solution returns at 5pm UK with the answer.

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