Speaking ahead of the inspection by world record officials, Dr McPolin said he was hopeful the structure would measure up.
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The Meccano bridge was declared open Saturday by the new Meccanoid Robot, and then proud (but rather courageous under the circumstances) Professor Trevor Whittaker of Queen’s University Belfast was the first to walk across the incredible bridge wearing a harness, among applause from hundreds of onlookers.
The Big Bridge Build project, which includes 11,000 pieces of Meccano and has taken a year to create, has already attracted attention from the engineering and architectural world.
However the event did not go quite as smoothly as organisers hoped, with a giant Meccano robot believed to have malfunctioned and swiped a Guinness World Record judicator round the head.
Students at Queen’s University in Belfast have set a Guinness World Record for designing and building a 100-foot bridge using Meccano.
“It is easy to build structures massively strong, with masses of metal in them”.
Dr Danny McPolin from the school of planning, architecture and civil engineering, who led the project, said: ‘In terms of the longer pieces, if they’re all laid out end-to-end I think it would be about 3.8 kilometres – approximately 10,000 or 11,000 pieces’.
He added that playing with the popular construction toy Meccano has probably inspired a lot of engineers over the years.
For those who don’t know Meccano is a model construction system created in Liverpool, United Kingdom by Frank Hornby.
A Guinness World Record representative will be in attendance, with Meccano giveways and other activities also taking place throughout the day.
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It has received funding from Stormont’s Department of Culture, Arts and Leisure and Meccano and support from a range of Northern Ireland businesses.
