🔗 Share this article Are You Able to Solve This? That Overlooked Netherlands Creation That Shaped our Modern World One can find many contenders to claim the designation as “world’s greatest innovation.” The wheel. The printing press. The steam engine. According to a recent publication, however, that title should go to the mechanised timber mill invented through Dutch inventor Corneliszoon van Uitgeest in 1593. “Prior to automated cutting, constructing a simple trading ship required approximately ten lumberjacks working for 90 days,” notes the author. “With wind-powered lumber mills, the same quantity of cut lumber might be produced within seven days.” Owing to this speedy mechanical cutter, that converted timber to boards with almost no human effort, Dutch builders were able to construct vessels more quickly than any other nation, an advantage that sparked one hundred years of Netherlands naval, financial and cultural supremacy across the continent and the globe. The First Genuine Manufacturing Device The inventor's lumber mill, contends the writer, represented “mankind’s first true factory machine.” A wind turbine turned a gear. A single part converted its rotary motion to up-and-down motion to power the saw. Another component transformed the rotary movement into a lateral motion feeding the timber to the blade. A geared mechanism shifted the log ahead one precise increment each stroke. “Each element seemed simple by itself. The Dutchman’s brilliance was to combine them in order that they acted in a perfectly controlled order, sawing with each downward motion while moving with each return motion. This constituted an astonishingly clever use of basic parts.” Which brings us to today’s challenge. The task is for you to reinvent one of the fundamental concepts underpinning this historic invention. Round and Up Design a machine which converts rotary movement into up-and-down action. You have these items exclusively: A spinning wheel. Two pins. Two bars. A “sleeve”, which is a tube or sleeve into which a single the rods can slide snugly. (Consider that it is possible to put things on a base, so the components do not collapse.) The solution returns at 5pm UK with the answer. Meanwhile, PLEASE NO HINTS. Rather, please suggest (non obvious) candidates as the world’s most impactful creation.