🔗 Share this article Are You Able to Crack It? That Overlooked Netherlands Invention Which Forged the Modern World There are many contenders for the designation as “planet’s greatest innovation.” The circular axle. The movable type. The combustion motor. According to a recent publication, though, that title should go to the mechanised sawmill invented by Dutchman Cornelis Corneliszoon in 1593. “Prior to mechanised sawing, constructing a simple merchant vessel required around 10 sawyers laboring for 90 days,” notes Jaime Dávila. “Using wind-powered lumber mills, an identical amount of cut lumber might be manufactured within seven days.” Owing to this speedy automated saw, which turned logs into planks using virtually no manual labor, Dutch builders could construct ships faster compared to anyone else, which unleashed a century of Netherlands naval, economic and cultural supremacy across Europe and the world. The Original True Industrial Machine The inventor's sawmill, contends Dávila, represented “humanity’s initial true industrial machine.” A windmill turned a wheel. A single part converted its circular motion into vertical action for the saw. A separate mechanism changed the spinning motion into a lateral movement feeding the log toward the cutter. A geared mechanism moved the log forward a measured step per cycle. “Each element seemed simple by itself. Corneliszoon’s brilliance lay in how to integrate them in order that the machine operated within a precisely synchronized sequence, sawing with each downward stroke and moving with each upward stroke. It was a remarkably intelligent use of fundamental components.” A fact that brings us to today’s challenge. The task is you to reinvent one of the basic concepts behind this historic invention. Round and Up Design a machine that turns circular motion to up-and-down action. You have these items exclusively: A spinning wheel. Two pegs. Two bars. A “guide”, that is a cylinder or housing through which one of the bars will fit snugly. (Assume you can mount components on a stand, so the components don’t collapse.) The solution returns at 5pm UK with the solution. In the interim, NO SPOILERS. Instead, please propose (less celebrated) candidates as the planet’s most impactful invention.