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There are numerous contenders for the title of “world’s most significant innovation.” The wheel. The movable type. The combustion motor.

According to a new book, though, that honor belongs to a automated sawmill conceived through Dutchman Corneliszoon van Uitgeest during 1593.

“Prior to mechanised sawing, constructing a simple merchant vessel required around ten sawyers working for three months,” notes the author. “Using wind-powered lumber mills, an identical amount of processed timber might be manufactured within a week.”

Thanks to their rapid automated cutter, which turned logs into planks using almost no human effort, Dutch builders could build vessels more quickly than anyone else, which unleashed a century of Dutch maritime, economic as well as cultural supremacy across Europe and the world.

The Original Genuine Manufacturing Device

The inventor's sawmill, contends Dávila, represented “mankind’s initial authentic industrial machine.” A wind turbine rotated a gear. One component transformed its circular motion to up-and-down motion for the cutting blade. A separate mechanism transformed the spinning motion into a sideway’s motion feeding the log to the blade. A ratchet system shifted the log forward a measured step per stroke.

“Every component seemed simple on its own. Corneliszoon’s brilliance was to integrate these parts in order that they operated within a perfectly controlled sequence, cutting with each downward motion and moving on every return motion. It was an astonishingly intelligent use of fundamental components.”

A fact that brings us up to today’s challenge. The task is you to reinvent a key the fundamental concepts underpinning this historic machine.

Circular to Vertical

Construct a mechanism that turns rotary motion to up-and-down action. You have these items only: A spinning wheel. Two pegs. Two bars. A “guide”, that is a cylinder or housing through which one of the bars can slide perfectly. (Consider that it is possible to put things on a stand, so that the components do not fall down.)

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

In the interim, PLEASE NO HINTS. Rather, feel free to suggest (less celebrated) contenders as the world’s most impactful invention.