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One can find numerous candidates for the designation as “world’s greatest innovation.” The wheel. The movable type. The combustion motor.

As per a recent publication, though, that title should go to the automated timber mill conceived through Dutch inventor Cornelis Corneliszoon in 1593.

“Prior to mechanised cutting, building a simple merchant vessel required approximately ten sawyers working over three months,” writes Jaime Dávila. “With wind-powered lumber mills, an identical amount of cut lumber could be manufactured within a week.”

Thanks to this rapid automated cutter, that turned logs into planks with almost no manual labor, the Dutch could construct ships faster than any other nation, an advantage that unleashed a century of Dutch naval, financial and cultural supremacy across the continent and the world.

The Original Genuine Manufacturing Machine

Corneliszoon’s lumber mill, argues Dávila, was “mankind’s first true factory apparatus.” A wind turbine turned a wheel. A single part transformed its circular motion to vertical action to power the saw. Another component changed that same spinning motion into a sideway’s motion feeding the timber to the blade. A ratchet system shifted the wood ahead one precise increment per stroke.

“Every component seemed modest by itself. The Dutchman’s genius was to combine them so they operated in a precisely synchronized order, cutting with each descending stroke while moving on every return stroke. This constituted an astonishingly clever use of fundamental parts.”

Which leads us to today’s puzzle. I’d like for you to reimagine one of the fundamental concepts behind Corneliszoon’s machine.

Circular to Vertical

Design a mechanism which converts circular movement to up-and-down motion. Your available these items only: A rotating disc. Two pegs. Two rods. A “sleeve”, that is a cylinder or sleeve through which one of the bars can slide snugly. (Consider that it is possible to put things on a stand, so the parts do not fall down.)

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

Meanwhile, NO SPOILERS. Instead, please suggest (non obvious) candidates as the planet’s most impactful creation.