Engineering Students Create World Record Bridge Made Of Meccano
Queen’s University Belfast Engineering students have set a world record by creating a 100ft bridge made completely out of Meccano. The bridge contains over 11,000 pieces of lightweight metal that reaches across part of the River Lagan.
An official from Guinness World Records have confirmed that the students set a record for the world’s largest Meccano construction.While wearing a harness and hardhat, Professor Trevor Whittaker walked across the bridge while a crowd of hundreds of people watched. Whittaker stated that the University helps train the students to be able to think for themselves and accomplish their dreams.
“We are basically training young people, training them to think, training them to dream, but dreaming alone is simply not good enough, you have to take the thing to another stage, you have to deliver at the end of the day.”
The Meccano inspired bridge was built over the Clarendon Dock. It was constructed by a group of third year civil engineering students and contains about 70,000 nuts and bolts. Professor Whittaker stated that while it may look complicated, the bridge was very easy to build thanks to the Meccano being a light, metal toy.
“It is easy to build structures massively strong, with masses of metal in them. Meccano is also metal, it is very light metal, it is a toy. A lot of engineers have probably grown to like engineering through playing with toys like Meccano.”
