Amusement devices – Seesaw – Having horizontally maintained seat
Patent
1996-11-27
1999-09-14
Nguyen, Kien T.
Amusement devices
Seesaw
Having horizontally maintained seat
472112, 434194, A63G 1100
Patent
active
059514060
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
This invention relates to educational play equipment for children.
BACKGROUND TO THE INVENTION
The principle of the see-saw is well-known, in which two children sit at opposite ends of a beam, and the beam pivots for up/down movement about a fulcrum mounted on a support post. The invention combines the use of the basic see-saw idea with an adjustable mechanism to create a teaching/learning apparatus, in which children use their own physical bodies to help them acquire abstract concepts in mathematics and physics. Using their own bodies provides young children with a powerful bridge to fundamental abstract concepts in mathematics and physics, such as numerically-balanced equations, addition, leverage, and moment force.
BASIC FEATURES OF THE INVENTION
The invention makes use of a see-saw apparatus comprising the usual beam mounted for rocking motion on a pivot. The beam includes left and right arms extending in opposite directions away from the pivot.
The beam carries respective left and right seats, each of which is suitable for receiving a child thereon, and the apparatus is so arranged that the beam can undergo up/down pivoting movement, relative to the fulcrum point. The beam is so arranged as to define respective left and right moment arms for each seat; an operable adjustment means, when operated, is effective to allow the length of at least one of the moment arms to be adjusted.
THE INVENTION AS COMPARED WITH SOME PRIOR ART DEVICES
A well-known aid for teaching numerical relationships to children is the desk-top mathematical balance-bar apparatus, as found in many class-rooms. In this apparatus, a beam is provided with hooks, upon which weighted tags may be selectably hung. The hooks are placed at intervals along the length of the beam, whereby, for example, tags at positions 5 and 3 on one arm of the beam will balance tags (of equal weight) at positions 1, 3, and 4, on the other arm of the beam.
This mathematical balance is a well-known useful aid for teaching mathematical concepts such as addition and numerical equivalence. The apparatus of the invention is aimed at giving children direct physical experience of balance-force equivalence and numerical equivalence, which helps children acquire those concepts.
Young children of course learn concrete concepts more readily than abstract concepts. Similarly, children acquire abstract concepts more readily when the teaching environment creates opportunities for them to acquire the abstract concepts in concrete ways, for example through direct experience with gross-motor and sensory-motor activities. The learning of mathematical concepts, in particular (since those concepts are generally abstract) is made easier by providing the children with concrete experiences, using a wide variety of manipulatives. This is especially the case in the pre-school and primary school years.
Another prior art apparatus is a see-saw in which the see-saw device includes a means for sensing a weight imbalance between the two children using the device, and includes a counter-balance weight which automatically moves to equalize the moment arms of each side of the see-saw in response to the sensed imbalance. The contrast between this idea and the invention is very clear: in the invention, the aim is to enable the child to feel, physically, the effects of a weight imbalance, and to learn the manual skill of adjusting the beam accordingly,
In relation to this prior device, it may be pointed out that a device which automatically compensates for differences in children's weights by-passes the child's chance of acquiring a perception of his own weight; indeed, making the device such that his own weight does not count in the moment arm equation may be regarded as an educational disservice to the child.
In the invention, the child is given the opportunity to make allowances for his own weight, and to learn how to adjust, numerically, for the magnitude of his own weight. When the adjustment is made automatically, the child learns nothing: or worse, he might even learn to stifle an
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