Amusement devices: toys – Construction toy – Figure
Patent
1988-01-29
1990-01-30
Yu, Mickey
Amusement devices: toys
Construction toy
Figure
446118, 446124, A63H 316, A63H 3306, A63H 3308
Patent
active
048970662
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
The invention concerns a toy activity centre comprising a base plate whose front side is provided with a plurality of removable activity units.
Such a toy is preferably intended for quite small children, the activity units being mechanically so adapted that upon activation (preferably motorily uncomplicated) they produce a visible or audible response to the activation. The drawback of the known activity centres is that the child's interest in these is of a very short duration because the child rapidly outgrows this infant toy.
The object of the invention is to provide an activity centre of the present type which comprises means appealing to the child's imagination to perform acts having a degree of difficulty reaching far beyond the field of use of the known activity centres.
This object is achieved in that the activity units have primary and secondary coupling means with a predetermined mutual modular spacing, said coupling means being adapted to be connected with the corresponding coupling means of another activity unit, and that the predominant part of the base plate rear side is provided with at least one of said two types of coupling means with said mutual modular spacing. After removal from the base plate, the activity units may be joined together in various positions like building blocks, with the base plate of the activity centre serving as a building base for this activity.
The activity units are formed in different ways depending upon the intended activity, but the general exterior features of the activity units preferably correspond to connectible building blocks known per se comprising mechanical coupling studs and means for receiving the coupling studs of an adjacent unit, as stated in claim 2. To ensure that the child cannot remove the activity units from the base plate before it is old enough, the activity centre is preferably formed with the locking means of claim 3 which improve the user safety. In this connection it is expedient that the coupling means of the activity units contribute to the locking effect, as stated in claim 4, while claim 5 defines some preferred details of the locking means.
An activity centre of the type described above may advantageously be placed on the bars of a play-pen, and it will thus be appreciated that it is important that the activity centre can be fixed securely to the play-pen owing to the safety of the child. The means defined in claim 6 provide for a particularly secure fixing of the activity centre since the bars of the play-pen will engage the coupling studs on the base plate rear side serving as coupling means. The features defined in claim 7 make it additionally certain that the mentioned flange does not slide with respect to the bars.
The invention will be explained more fully by the following description of an embodiment with reference to the drawing, in which
FIG. 1 shows an embodiment of the activity centre of the invention,
FIG. 2 is rear view of the activity centre of FIG. 1,
FIG. 3 shows the activity centre of FIG. 1 in which the activity units and a fixing means are removed from a base plate, while
FIG. 4 is a schematic perspective view of an activity unit.
FIG. 5 is a sectional view taken along reference lines V--V of FIG. 4 as indicated.
Initially, it will first be explained what is understood by an activity centre. The object of this toy has so far solely been that very small children can activate activity units, such as the units 1-6 shown in the figures, mechanically, so that the child can hear or see a response to the activation. Though unimportant to the understanding of the invention, it may e.g. be mentioned (see FIG. 3) that:
The activity unit 1 may e.g. operate so that the eyes 21, 22 or the mouth 23 may be pushed in individually or be released in that another one of these members is pushed in,
the activity unit 2 has a flap 24 which can spring up so that the eyes will be visible when pressure is applied to the nose 25,
the activity unit 3 may comprise a drum 26 with different facial features that may be changed by rotation of the
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patent: 4606732 (1986-08-01), Lyman
Olsen Flemming H.
Tapdrup Erik P.
Brown Michael
Interlego A.G.
Yu Mickey
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