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One can find numerous candidates for the designation as “planet’s greatest innovation.” The circular axle. The printing press. The steam engine.

According to a recent publication, though, that honor should go to the mechanised timber mill conceived by Dutchman Corneliszoon van Uitgeest in 1593.

“Before mechanised cutting, building a simple merchant vessel necessitated approximately ten lumberjacks working over 90 days,” notes the author. “With wind-driven sawmills, an identical quantity of cut lumber could be manufactured within seven days.”

Thanks to their speedy automated saw, which turned logs into planks with almost no manual labor, Dutch builders were able to build vessels faster compared to any other nation, an advantage that unleashed one hundred years of Netherlands maritime, economic and cultural dominance across the continent and the globe.

The Original Genuine Manufacturing Machine

Corneliszoon’s lumber mill, contends Dávila, was “humanity’s first authentic factory machine.” A windmill rotated a gear. One component transformed the rotary motion to vertical action for the saw. Another component changed that same spinning motion into a lateral movement feeding the timber toward the blade. A geared mechanism moved the log forward one precise increment each cycle.

“Every component seemed modest by itself. The Dutchman’s brilliance was to integrate them in order that the machine acted in a precisely synchronized order, sawing with each downward motion while moving on every upward stroke. This constituted an astonishingly intelligent application of basic components.”

Which brings us up to the current challenge. The task is you to reinvent one of the basic ideas underpinning Corneliszoon’s invention.

Circular to Vertical

Construct a mechanism that turns rotary movement into up-and-down action. You have these components exclusively: A rotating disc. Two pins. Two bars. A “guide”, which is a cylinder or housing through which one of the bars will fit perfectly. (Consider that you can put things on a stand, so the components don’t fall down.)

The solution returns later today UK time featuring the solution.

Meanwhile, PLEASE NO HINTS. Instead, please suggest (less celebrated) candidates for the world’s most impactful invention.