Amusement devices: toys – Including unattached gravity-fed rolling – tumbling – or...
Patent
1998-05-19
2000-05-02
Hafer, Robert A.
Amusement devices: toys
Including unattached gravity-fed rolling, tumbling, or...
446 92, 273120R, A63H 3300
Patent
active
060566205
ABSTRACT:
A marble track construction toy for assembly on a vertically-oriented planar surface. The construction toy includes chutes down which the marble can roll, pivot elements and bumpers for altering the direction of the motion of the marble, and a catch basket for retaining the marble at the terminus of the track. Each chute includes a mounting means so the chute can be mounted on the vertically-oriented planar surface with both ends of the chute oriented parallel to the planar surface. Similarly, each bumper includes a mounting means so the bumper can be mounted on the vertically-oriented planar surface with an impact surface oriented perpendicular to the mounting surface. And each pivot element has a bucket and a pivoting bucket arm, and includes a mounting means so the pivot element can be mounted on the vertically-oriented planar surface such that the bucket pivots in the plane of the mounting surface. An operable marble track is constructed by adjustments of the positions of the chutes, pivot elements and bumpers, and adjustments of the orientations of the chutes, to insure that the catch buckets, chutes and catch basket are positioned to receive the marble at the terminus of its sequence of mid-air trajectories. In one preferred embodiment magnets are used as the surface-mounting means, so the track can be constructed on paramagnetic or ferromagnetic surfaces such as refrigerator doors.
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Carlson Jeffrey D.
Hafer Robert A.
Shaw Laurence J.
Think Of It, Inc.
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