Watch: Meccano lovers build up a big following at Ironbridge museum event

One of the UK's biggest exhibitions of Meccano came to Ironbridge Gorge's Enginuity museum this bank holiday weekend, bringing with it a mind-boggling array of complex models and machines probably never imagined by Frank Hornby when he released the first set of the building toy in 1901.

Today is the final day of the weekend extravaganza, which has seen machine-building challenges and competitions alongside models including cranes, trains and automobiles, pattern-drawing machines, fairground rides and clocks.

But not all models on display are traditional – one involved an accurate computer-controlled three-axis robotic drill and another generated poetry.

Such cutting edge engineering is nothing new for the toy – Enginuity is also home to the only known replica of the world's first programmable industrial robot, built from Meccano in 1937.

Chris Shute, chairman of Telford and Ironbridge Meccano Society, said: "We have people from all over the country who have travelled to be here, from Southampton to Newcastle.

"Some of the models are very delicate, but we also have a number of them that we are very happy for children to have a go with, with levers to pull and moving parts and so on.

"We have plastic and metal Meccano systems for children to build with, too.

"We think it's very important for children to get interested and develop their skills.

"Meccano never goes out of date – there are models here that have parts made today joined to parts from 1901," he said.

Meccano sets are still sold in toy shops today.

And the product is about to be relaunched after being bought up by toy makers Spin Master.

But there is also an unstable market in replica Meccano parts.

Enthusiasts are split over whether it's OK to use them.

Gregg Warwood, who had a one-twentieth scale replica of the Iron Bridge at the exhibition, as well as a working model of a Shay locomotive, said: "The problem is collecting enough parts.

"You can't just go to the local shop and buy specific green and red parts anymore.

"And the sources for them are getting less."

He said replica Meccano firms in Germany and Argentina had both gone bust recently.

This means the price of parts from a remaining firm in India had shot up.

The 70-year-old, originally from Wolverhampton, but now living in Wiltshire, said: "It was because of my interest in Meccano as a boy that I went into engineering as an adult.

"I only got into Meccano again when I retired – but I still had my childhood set."

David Lacy, 71, from Shrewsbury, agreed. He is displaying an "endless ball shute" which keeps ping-pong balls cycling forever along with detailed replicas of old Midland Red buses that he has been working on for years.

"I think the S15 model bus I started about 15 years ago – and they're still not finished yet. I'm trying to do a working destination blind for it (the sign on the front that rotates to say where the bus is going).

"I probably started playing with Meccano when I was eight or nine – in those days there weren't many toys, there was this or Dinky toys and I had both."

The exhibition is on from 10am until 4.30pm today.

Exhibitors also compete for the John Linder Memorial Shield, commemorating one of the founder members of the Telford and Ironbridge Meccano Society.

This year, the Shield will be awarded for the best scale model.

Meccano was invented in 1901 by Frank Hornby, and is still made using imperial British measurements.