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There are many candidates to claim the designation as “planet’s greatest innovation.” The circular axle. The printing press. The steam engine.

As per a recent publication, however, that honor should go to the mechanised sawmill invented by Dutchman Cornelis Corneliszoon in 1593.

“Prior to automated cutting, constructing a simple trading ship necessitated around ten sawyers laboring over three months,” writes Jaime Dávila. “With wind-driven lumber mills, an identical amount of cut lumber might be produced within a week.”

Thanks to this speedy mechanical saw, that converted logs into planks with virtually no manual labor, the Dutch were able to build vessels more quickly compared to anyone else, which unleashed a century of Netherlands naval, financial and artistic dominance in Europe and the world.

The Original Genuine Industrial Machine

Corneliszoon’s sawmill, contends the writer, was “mankind’s initial true factory apparatus.” A windmill rotated a wheel. One component transformed the circular movement into up-and-down action for the cutting blade. Another component transformed the rotary movement into a sideway’s motion feeding the log toward the blade. A ratchet system shifted the wood forward one precise increment per cycle.

“Every component was simple by itself. The Dutchman’s brilliance was to combine them in order that the machine acted within a precisely synchronized order, sawing on every downward stroke and moving on every return stroke. It was an astonishingly intelligent application of fundamental components.”

Which leads us to today’s challenge. The task is for you to reinvent one of the fundamental concepts underpinning Corneliszoon’s machine.

Round and Up

Construct a machine which converts rotary motion to up-and-down motion. Your available these items only: A spinning wheel. Two pegs. Two rods. A “sleeve”, that is a cylinder or housing into which one of the bars will fit snugly. (Assume you can put things on a stand, so the components don’t collapse.)

The solution returns later today UK time with the solution.

In the interim, PLEASE NO HINTS. Instead, please propose (less celebrated) candidates for the world’s most impactful creation.