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There are many contenders for the title of “world’s most significant invention.” The circular axle. The movable type. The steam engine.

As per a new book, however, that title should go to a mechanised sawmill conceived through Dutchman Corneliszoon van Uitgeest in 1593.

“Before mechanised cutting, constructing a simple merchant vessel required approximately ten lumberjacks laboring for three months,” writes Jaime Dávila. “Using wind-powered sawmills, an identical quantity of cut lumber could be manufactured within seven days.”

Thanks to their speedy mechanical cutter, that turned logs into planks with almost no human effort, Dutch builders could construct vessels more quickly than anyone else, which unleashed one hundred years of Netherlands maritime, financial as well as cultural dominance in the continent and the world.

The First Genuine Manufacturing Device

The inventor's sawmill, contends Dávila, was “humanity’s first true factory machine.” A windmill rotated a gear. A single part transformed the rotary movement to up-and-down motion for the cutting blade. Another component changed that same rotary movement into a sideway’s motion advancing the log to the blade. A geared mechanism shifted the log ahead a measured step per cycle.

“Every component was modest by itself. The Dutchman’s brilliance was to combine these parts so the machine acted within a precisely synchronized order, cutting with each downward stroke while moving on every upward motion. It was a remarkably intelligent use of fundamental components.”

A fact that brings us up to today’s challenge. I’d like you to reimagine a key the fundamental ideas underpinning this historic machine.

Round and Up

Design a machine that turns rotary motion into up-and-down action. You have these items exclusively: A spinning wheel. Two pins. Two rods. A “guide”, which is a cylinder or sleeve into which a single the bars will fit perfectly. (Assume you can put things on a stand, so that the components do not fall down.)

The solution returns later today UK with the answer.

Meanwhile, PLEASE NO HINTS. Rather, feel free to propose (non obvious) contenders as the planet’s most impactful invention.