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One can find numerous contenders to claim the designation as “world’s most significant invention.” The circular axle. The printing press. The steam engine.

As per a new book, though, that honor belongs to the automated timber mill conceived by Dutch inventor Corneliszoon van Uitgeest during 1593.

“Prior to mechanised sawing, constructing a simple merchant vessel required approximately ten sawyers working over three months,” writes Jaime Dávila. “Using wind-driven lumber mills, the same quantity of processed timber could be produced within a week.”

Owing to this rapid mechanical saw, that converted logs into boards with virtually no manual labor, Dutch builders were able to construct vessels faster compared to anyone else, which unleashed a century of Netherlands naval, economic as well as artistic supremacy across the continent and the world.

The First True Industrial Device

Corneliszoon’s lumber mill, argues the writer, represented “humanity’s initial true factory apparatus.” A windmill rotated a wheel. One component transformed the circular motion to vertical action to power the cutting blade. Another component transformed the spinning movement into a lateral movement advancing the log to the cutter. A geared mechanism moved the wood forward one precise increment each stroke.

“Every component was simple by itself. The Dutchman’s brilliance lay in how to combine these parts in order that the machine acted in a precisely synchronized sequence, sawing on every downward motion and advancing on every upward motion. It was a remarkably clever application of fundamental parts.”

A fact that leads us up to the current challenge. The task is you to reinvent a key the basic concepts behind this historic machine.

Circular to Vertical

Construct a mechanism that turns rotary motion to up-and-down action. You have these items exclusively: A rotating disc. Two pegs. Two rods. A “guide”, which is a tube or housing through which one of the rods can slide snugly. (Assume it is possible to mount components on a stand, so the components do not fall down.)

I’ll be back at 5pm UK time featuring the answer.

In the interim, PLEASE NO HINTS. Instead, feel free to propose (less celebrated) contenders for the planet’s most impactful invention.