The Meccano Society of Scotland

Menstrie Meeting 2015

In May 2015 we held our annual Menstrie Meeting and Challange.
This year the challenge was to build a vehicle etc. that could climb a flight of stairs. See the Challenge Rules page for more details.

Menstrie Challenge - Report

This year's challenge was to build a vehicle to ascend a flight of stairs as quickly as possible. The flight of stairs, constructed from wood by Alan Macdonald, had five steps (or risers), each riser being of successively greater height. The first step was 2", the next 2 V2" and so on until the fifth step which was 4" high. Each step was 12" deep.

Five intrepid members entered six vehicles for the challenge. Andy Knox's and Gordon Stewart's entries were similar to their entries in last years climbing challenge. Douglas Carson had the only clockwork powered affair, namely a No 2 clockwork motor taking the drive off one of the intermediate gears. George Roy entered two contraptions and Robert Jones also entered a runner.

In the event, there were only two real challengers. Robert Jones's and one of George Roy's entries were withdrawn without managing to conquer the first step and Douglas Carson's and George Roy's other entry both managed two steps before retiring, exhausted. Both Andy's and Gordon's entries climbed the complete flight of stairs without trouble so in the end it came down to which was the fastest. Andy Knox's machine was fastest by a considerable margin so he was was crowned the winner of this year's Menstrie Challenge.

Pictures from Menstrie 2015

High resolution versions of the photos are also available for download if desired.

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