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Earlier today I asked you to reinvent a component of the sixteenth century Dutch sawmill, which – according to a new book – was the world’s first industrial machine. You can read that post here, along with some great BTL discussion about the world’s greatest inventions. (Spoon or spear? Plough or spectacles? Transistor or trousers?)
Round and up
Design a machine that turns rotary motion to up-and-down motion. You have these items only: A rotating disc. Two pins. Two rods. A “guide”, which is a cylinder or sleeve into which one of the rods will fit perfectly. (Assume you can put things on a stand, so the components don’t fall down.)
Solution
There are many ways to convert rotary to linear motion, but the example here is perhaps the most simple. Pin one end of a rod to the disc anywhere apart from the centre of the disc, and pin the other end of the rod to a second rod in a guide that is pointing in any direction.
The illustration shows the wheel turning anticlockwise. As it moves around, it pulls the rod down and then pushes it up.
In the Dutch sawmill, inventor Cornelis Corneliszoon converted rotary motion from a windmill into linear motion in two ways: to push a log horizontally along a carriage, and to push a blade vertically down onto the log. As a result the Dutch built many boats, became a great trading nation, and established the settlement that eventually became New York.
I hope you enjoyed the puzzle. I’ll be back in two weeks.
Forgotten: How One Man Unlocked The Modern World by Jaime Dávila is published on December 18.
I’ve been setting a puzzle here on alternate Mondays since 2015. I’m always on the look-out for great puzzles. If you would like to suggest one, email me.
