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There are numerous contenders for the designation as “world’s most significant invention.” The circular axle. The movable type. The combustion motor.

As per a recent publication, however, that honor should go to a mechanised sawmill conceived by Dutchman Cornelis Corneliszoon during 1593.

“Prior to mechanised cutting, building a simple merchant vessel necessitated around 10 sawyers laboring for three months,” writes Jaime Dávila. “Using wind-driven lumber mills, the same amount of processed timber could be manufactured within seven days.”

Thanks to this speedy mechanical cutter, which turned logs into boards with almost no human effort, the Dutch could build vessels faster compared to anyone else, which unleashed one hundred years of Dutch maritime, economic and artistic supremacy across Europe and the globe.

The First Genuine Manufacturing Device

The inventor's sawmill, argues the writer, was “humanity’s first authentic industrial apparatus.” A windmill rotated a gear. One component transformed its rotary motion into vertical action for the cutting blade. A separate mechanism transformed the rotary motion into a lateral movement advancing the timber to the cutter. A geared mechanism moved the wood forward one precise increment each stroke.

“Every component seemed simple by itself. Corneliszoon’s brilliance was to integrate these parts so the machine operated in a precisely synchronized order, cutting on every downward stroke and moving on every upward motion. It was an astonishingly clever application of basic parts.”

Which brings us to the current challenge. I’d like you to reimagine one of the fundamental concepts underpinning this historic invention.

Round and Up

Construct a machine which converts rotary motion into up-and-down action. You have these components only: A rotating disc. Two pegs. Two bars. A “sleeve”, which is a cylinder or sleeve into which a single the bars can slide snugly. (Assume you can mount components on a stand, so that the parts do not fall down.)

The solution returns at 5pm UK time featuring the solution.

Meanwhile, PLEASE NO HINTS. Instead, feel free to suggest (non obvious) contenders for the world’s greatest creation.