TIME is running out to see some of the weird and wonderful inventions of the much-loved cartoonist and sculpture Rowland Emett.

Many of his surreal kinetic creations are on show at museums in the area until September 6, including those that appeared in the film Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

The inventor of the Featherstone Kite, aka the Gentleman’s Flying Machine, and the Visivision Machine, lived in Ditchling for much of his life as part of an artistic community.

Those and other works are now on display Ditchling Museum of Art and Craft, Booth Museum of Natural History, in Dyke Road and Brighton and Hove museums.

Fiona Redford, creative programmes officer with Brighton Museum, in Royal Pavilion Gardens, said: “It has just been really nice having such incredible machines.

"They are quite complicated to get in the building, but once they are in they are great fun.

“It can be quite serious in the gallery sometimes, so it is really nice to have something whimsical.”

Many of the intricate works on display locally are usually in Leeds and have been shipped down in crates and pieced together again once inside the museums.

Ms Redford added: “They are very well-engineered and are all built to come apart.

“Putting them together is relatively simple – he made them to be assembled and re-assembled. They are not as complicated as they look.”

Referring to the 1962 Gentleman’s Flying Machine, she added: “There are a lot of fantastic little items that you can spot; it has been here for a while and I am still spotting things. I found an alarm clock in it and a couple of birds nesting in it.”

Among the other works on display are the Little Dragon Carpet Sweeper, at the Booth Museum, and the Humbug Major, at Hove.

Both were designed for the hit 1968 musical film Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, the former sucking up carpets and the latter producing the ‘toot sweets’ – candy that sounds like a whistle - in the film.

The Exploratory Moon-probe Lunacycle is also at Hove Museum, in New Church Road, complete with the Astro Cat carried to establish which way up gravity is.

The machines in the museums are operated by sensors meaning they start moving when viewers approach.