Amusement devices: toys – Material or article handling device
Patent
1993-06-29
1995-01-03
Hindenburg, Max
Amusement devices: toys
Material or article handling device
446144, 446427, A63H 3330, A63H 1714
Patent
active
053781910
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The invention concerns a toy device for picking up objects from a plane face, where a set of wheels drives rotary blades adapted to guide the objects into a magazine in the device.
A plurality of examples of devices of the said type is known, which may in practice be divided into two different categories. The first category comprises i.e. a French patent 2631839, disclosing a unit for collecting tennis balls, which takes place by using plate-shaped blades. An American patent specification U.S. Pat. No. 3,197,918 discloses a toy animal, which "eats" various objects which are moved into a magazine. A British patent GB 921,344 likewise provides an "eating" animal where objects or the "food" is moved into a magazine. An American patent specification U.S. Pat. No. 3,983,662 provides a device for picking up objects such as toys. The device disclosed in said specification has a blade wheel with stiff blades coated with foamed plastics to cushion the forces which the stiff blades impart to the objects upon contact.
It is common to the above-mentioned examples of prior art that all comprise blade wheels with stiff blades, entailing that these devices are only suitable for picking up round objects, since the blade wheel if hitting a box-shaped block will often drive up on the block instead of moving it into the magazine. Thus, these devices are not suitable for picking up building elements of a toy building set when these elements may be box-shaped. Further, the devices have the drawback that their dynamic range, i.e. the difference between the largest and the smallest object which may be picked up with the device, is rather limited.
It has been attempted to compensate this in a plurality of other patent specifications belonging to the second category; an example of these is an American patent specification U.S. Pat. No. 3,959,922 which provides a device for picking up objects, such as toys. The blade wheel is here made of a soft, spongy material. A German patent specification DE 873 669 describes how the toy may be picked up with a device having a brush mounted rotatably about a horizontal axis for moving the toy into a magazine. A toy car with a blade wheel having soft and relatively thick blades is described in a Danish patent specification DK 153 054. It is common to this second category of devices for picking up objects from a plane face that a horizontally positioned blade wheel with blades of soft, spongy or porous materials is provided at the front of the device. This has the drawback that the blades will rapidly be worn and destroyed. Further materials of this type are difficult to clean, so that, in addition to the limited durability, also the difficult cleaning must be mentioned as one of the drawbacks.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The object of the invention is to provide a toy device for picking up objects from a plane surface and moving them to a magazine, where the device must be capable of picking up objects having widely different sizes and shapes by means of a blade wheel, and the blades of the blade wheel must simultaneously be solid and so shaped that the device can pick up box-shaped blocks, even if a rotary blade wheel hits a block from above.
This object is achieved according to the invention in that each blade is formed of a relatively stiff material and comprises an integral hinge spaced from the axis of rotation of the blade wheel. As long as it does not encounter serious resistance from the objects to be picked up, a blade having such an integral hinge will operate like the stiff blade wheel according to the prior art, while the integral hinge will contribute with its effect when a blade is loaded substantially when contacting an object to be picked up.
This load may be that a blade hits a box-shaped block from above. In the prior art, the vehicle would lift, but the integral hinge here entails that a blade will bend and move past the object which will then be guided to the magazine by the next blade.
The integral hinge is preferably formed in parallel with the
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Carlson Jeffrey D.
Hindenburg Max
INTERLEGO AG
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