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There are numerous contenders to claim the title of “planet’s greatest innovation.” The wheel. The printing press. The combustion motor.

According to a new book, though, that title should go to the mechanised timber mill conceived by Dutchman Corneliszoon van Uitgeest in 1593.

“Before automated sawing, building a simple merchant vessel required around 10 sawyers working for three months,” notes Jaime Dávila. “Using wind-powered sawmills, the same quantity of cut lumber might be produced within seven days.”

Thanks to their rapid automated cutter, which converted timber into planks with virtually no human effort, the Dutch could build ships faster compared to anyone else, an advantage that sparked one hundred years of Dutch maritime, economic as well as cultural dominance in Europe and the world.

The Original Genuine Industrial Machine

The inventor's lumber mill, argues Dávila, was “mankind’s initial authentic industrial machine.” A wind turbine turned a wheel. One component converted the circular movement to up-and-down action to power the saw. Another component changed the rotary motion into a lateral motion feeding the timber toward the blade. A ratchet system shifted the wood ahead a measured step each stroke.

“Each element was simple by itself. Corneliszoon’s brilliance was to combine them in order that the machine acted in a precisely synchronized sequence, cutting with each descending motion while moving on every return stroke. This constituted a remarkably clever application of basic components.”

Which leads us up to the current challenge. I’d like you to reinvent a key the basic concepts underpinning Corneliszoon’s machine.

Circular to Vertical

Construct a mechanism which converts circular movement to up-and-down action. Your available these components exclusively: A spinning wheel. Two pegs. Two rods. A “guide”, which is a tube or sleeve into which a single the bars can slide perfectly. (Consider that it is possible to put things on a stand, so that the components do not collapse.)

The solution returns later today UK time featuring the answer.

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