April 2011 Meeting
Report from our June 2011 Newsletter
Saturday 2 April 2011
Eltham United Reformed Church
Eltham
This was one of our informal quarterly meetings where our members showed off their latest Meccano creations.
At around 2:00pm we had a short committee meeting, followed by the Model Tour in which members were invited to give a short talk about their models — in particular their entries for the Secretary’s Challenge!
Xtreme Dragster Races
At this meeting we held two Xtreme dragster races. The Xtreme kit includes a pull-back ‘motor’ and it’s the motor that members had to incorporate into their model.
Although the kit as bought is a dragster, using a no-nuts system for joining the parts together, members didn’t have to use the parts from the kit in their dragster – just the motor and other parts from standard Meccano or the Xtreme dragster to complete it.
Watch our video of the races
The 14 Parts Plus Semi-Circular Plates Only Secretary’s Challenge
This Challenge was ‘borrowed’ from the Christchurch Meccano Club in New Zealand. The challenge, which they ran in Spring 2007, was to build a model using no more than fourteen separate Meccano parts. In addition members could use any number of part 37 (nut and bolt) and any number of part 214 (semi-circular plate). Most members have a box full of these in an assortment of colours so it was interesting to see what uses they could can find for this very common part.