🔗 Share this article Can You Solve This? That Overlooked Dutch Invention That Shaped our Modern World One can find numerous contenders to claim the designation as “planet’s most significant invention.” The wheel. The movable type. The steam engine. According to a recent publication, however, that honor should go to a automated timber mill conceived by Dutch inventor Corneliszoon van Uitgeest in 1593. “Before mechanised sawing, building a modest trading ship required approximately 10 lumberjacks laboring over 90 days,” writes Jaime Dávila. “Using wind-powered sawmills, the same quantity of processed timber could be produced within seven days.” Thanks to their speedy automated saw, that turned logs to boards using virtually no human effort, Dutch builders were able to build ships faster compared to any other nation, an advantage that sparked a century of Netherlands naval, economic as well as artistic supremacy across Europe and the globe. The First Genuine Industrial Device Corneliszoon’s lumber mill, argues the writer, represented “humanity’s initial authentic industrial apparatus.” A wind turbine rotated a wheel. One component transformed the circular motion to up-and-down motion for the saw. A separate mechanism changed that same spinning movement into a sideway’s movement feeding the log toward the cutter. A geared mechanism moved the log ahead one precise increment each stroke. “Each element seemed modest by itself. Corneliszoon’s genius lay in how to combine these parts so they acted within a precisely synchronized order, cutting on every downward stroke and advancing on every return stroke. It was a remarkably clever application of fundamental parts.” Which leads us up to the current challenge. The task is you to reinvent one of the basic ideas behind this historic invention. Circular to Vertical Construct a mechanism that turns circular motion to up-and-down action. You have these items only: A spinning wheel. Two pins. Two bars. A “guide”, that is a cylinder or housing into which a single the bars can slide perfectly. (Consider that you can put things on a stand, so that the parts don’t collapse.) The solution returns at 5pm UK featuring the answer. Meanwhile, PLEASE NO HINTS. Rather, please propose (non obvious) contenders for the planet’s most impactful creation.