🔗 Share this article Can You Solve It? The Overlooked Netherlands Invention Which Shaped our Modern Globe There are many candidates for the title of “planet’s greatest invention.” The wheel. The printing press. The combustion motor. According to a recent publication, however, that title belongs to a automated timber mill conceived by Dutchman Corneliszoon van Uitgeest in 1593. “Before mechanised cutting, constructing a simple merchant vessel necessitated around 10 sawyers working for three months,” writes Jaime Dávila. “Using wind-driven sawmills, the same quantity of cut lumber could be produced within seven days.” Owing to this rapid automated cutter, which turned timber into boards using virtually no human effort, the Dutch were able to build ships faster compared to any other nation, which unleashed a century of Dutch maritime, economic and cultural supremacy in the continent and the globe. The First True Industrial Machine The inventor's lumber mill, argues Dávila, was “mankind’s first authentic factory machine.” A windmill rotated a gear. A single part converted the rotary movement to vertical action to power the cutting blade. Another component changed the rotary movement into a lateral motion advancing the log to the cutter. A geared mechanism moved the log ahead one precise increment each cycle. “Each element was simple by itself. Corneliszoon’s brilliance was to combine them so they operated within a perfectly controlled order, cutting with each downward motion while advancing on every return stroke. This constituted an astonishingly intelligent application of fundamental parts.” Which brings us up to today’s challenge. I’d like you to reinvent one of the basic concepts behind this historic machine. Circular to Vertical Design a mechanism that turns circular motion into vertical action. You have these components exclusively: A spinning wheel. Two pegs. Two rods. A “guide”, which is a cylinder or housing through which a single the bars will fit perfectly. (Consider that you can mount components on a stand, so the components do not collapse.) I’ll be back later today UK with the answer. Meanwhile, PLEASE NO HINTS. Instead, feel free to propose (less celebrated) contenders as the world’s most impactful creation.