🔗 Share this article Are You Able to Solve This? The Forgotten Netherlands Creation That Forged our Contemporary Globe One can find many contenders for the title of “world’s greatest innovation.” The circular axle. The printing press. The combustion motor. As per a recent publication, however, that honor should go to the automated sawmill conceived by Dutch inventor Corneliszoon van Uitgeest in 1593. “Before mechanised sawing, constructing a simple trading ship required around ten sawyers working for 90 days,” writes the author. “Using wind-driven sawmills, the same amount of processed timber might be produced in less than seven days.” Thanks to their rapid automated saw, which converted logs into boards using virtually no manual labor, the Dutch could build vessels faster compared to anyone else, an advantage that unleashed one hundred years of Dutch maritime, financial and artistic dominance in the continent and the world. The First Genuine Industrial Device The inventor's sawmill, contends Dávila, was “mankind’s first authentic industrial apparatus.” A windmill turned a gear. One component transformed its rotary motion to up-and-down action for the cutting blade. Another component changed that same rotary motion into a sideway’s movement advancing the log to the blade. A geared mechanism shifted the wood forward a measured step per stroke. “Each element was simple on its own. The Dutchman’s brilliance lay in how to combine them in order that they operated in a precisely synchronized order, sawing on every downward stroke while moving with each return motion. It was a remarkably intelligent use of basic parts.” Which leads us to today’s challenge. The task is for you to reinvent one of the basic concepts underpinning this historic invention. Round and Up Design a machine that turns circular motion to up-and-down motion. You have these components exclusively: A spinning wheel. Two pins. Two bars. A “guide”, that is a cylinder or sleeve through which one of the bars will fit perfectly. (Assume it is possible to put things on a stand, so that the parts don’t fall down.) I’ll be back later today UK time featuring the answer. In the interim, NO SPOILERS. Rather, please suggest (less celebrated) candidates for the planet’s greatest creation.