Poetry Composing Machine 1 by Chris Shute (Photo: Bob Thompson)
When: 4th – 6th May 2013, open 10am – 5pm
Where: Enginuity, Ironbridge, Shropshire
£: 8.50 for adults and 7 for the 60+ and for children. Enginuity is one of the Ironbridge Gorge Museums, an annual Passport Ticket allowing entry into all ten museums, with unlimited return visits, costs 24 for adults, 19 for the 60+, 15.25 for students and children and 65 for a family; under 5s free.
What is it?
An amazing display of working Meccano models created by Telford and Ironbridge Meccano Society, will be an extra bonus for anyone visiting Enginuity over the spring bank holiday weekend.
Open daily and larger than ever before, the Meccanuity 2013 exhibition will feature an impressive array of large and small models ranging from giant cranes and steam engines to pattern drawing machines and clocks. A varied collection of railway breakdown cranes will also be on display, while large quantities of Meccano parts will be available for youngsters to create their own Meccano wonders.
Not all models are traditional or industrial. The society chairman, Chris Shute, will also be demonstrating his hand-operated poetry-composing machine, capable of producing billions of unique and cryptic four-line verses.
A competition is held each year at Meccanuity where modellers are challenged to produce something out of the ordinary. In celebration of Britain’s recent cycling successes, this year’s challenge is to build a two-wheeled racing vehicle. The contest will be held on Sunday afternoon at around 3pm with the winner receiving a trophy built from reclaimed Meccano parts.
Meccano was invented in 1901 by Frank Hornby and is still made using imperial British measurements. It was used to build the world’s first programmable industrial robot in 1937; the only known replica of this Robot Gargantua is currently displayed in Enginuity.
More info: www.ironbridge.org.uk