HK1130025B - Didactic game piece - Google Patents

Description

Teaching toy parts

Technical Field

The present invention relates to an educational toy component having a contact surface and having at least one first magnet on the inside, the first magnet having a magnetic axis facing the contact surface.

Background

Educational toys are known to be constructed of multiple parts whereby a user can construct a complex assembly. These complex components can be of very different types: they can be simple geometric shapes to form a construction by means of a simple superposition of parts, they can be assembled or snap-fitted parts that, once assembled, can prevent disassembly to some extent, they can be magic cubes, cubic magic cubes, etc.

In some cases, it is of interest that these components, once assembled, are somewhat resistant to disassembly. As already explained above, components of this type are known, having some way of connection on their surface. However, these reversible joining devices (such as closely fitting dovetail grooves) have a significant effect on the appearance of the components. In other cases, magnets included therein are used, both on the visible surface of the component and, equivalently, on the interior thereof. However, magnets have the disadvantage of producing a magnetic field of a particular orientation. In order for one magnet to attract the other magnet, both magnets must be properly oriented. In the opposite case, a repulsive force is generated instead of an attractive force. A ferromagnetic element may be included that is always attracted by the magnet regardless of its orientation, but this creates a "selectivity" between the different components of the educational toy. Particular components with magnets inside will only be able to be assembled with those with ferromagnetic elements or those with magnets oriented in the opposite direction, but they will not be able to be assembled with other components; it will in particular not be able to be assembled with another component identical to it.

Disclosure of Invention

The object of the present invention is to overcome these disadvantages. This object is achieved by means of a component of an educational toy of the type mentioned at the beginning, characterized in that the first magnet is coupled to the component by means of some fixing means having moving means adapted to move the magnetic axis of the first magnet relative to the contact surface, so that any contact surface of any of said components can face any contact surface of any other of said components, leaving the two contact surfaces coupled to each other by the attractive force of the respective magnet.

Thus, in order to be able to ensure that any contact surface of a component can be joined to any contact surface of another component, it is necessary to be able to orient the magnets facing each other towards these surfaces in such a way that they can have the correct polarity to carry out the attraction force from one to the other. To do so, the magnet needs to be movable. Preferably, this orientation must be done in an automated manner, which means that no specific action needs to be performed by the user. In this sense, the moving means are actuated by the own attraction and repulsion between the magnets. If the two surfaces of the two contact surfaces of the two components face each other, with the corresponding magnets having poles of the same orientation, a repelling force will be generated which tends to separate them. The moving means will be actuated by the repulsive force in such a way that the two magnets change their relative position in space. This will allow the magnet to move to a new relative position in which an attractive force is exercised between the two components.

There are many ways to design a mobile device to meet these conditions. A description of some of these will be given next with the aid of the accompanying drawings, without this excluding other possibilities.

The invention also relates to an educational toy comprising a plurality of components, wherein at least two of said components are components according to the invention.

The object of the invention is also a puzzle made up of a plurality of cubes, each face of each cube showing a fragment of an image, characterized in that each cube is a component according to the invention.

Preferably, the cube is made up of a large number of cubes, the root of which is an integer and the cubes are adapted to be arranged in three dimensions, forming a larger cube, in such a way that each surface of the larger cube displays an image made up of image segments of each visible surface of each cube. Thus, a larger cube will have dimensions (height, width, and depth) made up of a particular number of cubes. Each size will have the same number of cubes. Thus, a larger cube will have a number of whole cubes (2)³、3³、4³Etc.). The total number of cubes of the puzzle will therefore be a number whose cubic root is an integer (8, 27, 64, etc.), thus enabling a new puzzle with exceptional and attractive complexity to be obtained. Preferably the puzzle will have 8, 27 or 64 cubes and most preferably will have 27 cubes as these are the most suitable number to form the puzzle with achievable difficulty.

Larger cubes can be formed in many different shapes. For example, if the larger cube is made up of 27 cubes, the larger cube can display 18 different images in such a way that, once fully constructed, the larger cube displays 6 simultaneous full images, one on each face of the larger cube. If the larger cube is made up of 64 cubes, the larger cube can display 24 different images. Thus, this puzzle has a certain difficulty and has a greater attraction than a conventional puzzle.

Drawings

Other advantages and features of the present invention will be understood from the following description, wherein some preferred modes of embodying the present invention are described, without any limitation, in connection with the accompanying drawings. The figures show:

figures 1, 2, 3 and 4 show some schematic views of some longitudinal sections of some components of an educational toy with four preferred forms embodying a movement apparatus in accordance with the present invention.

Fig. 5 shows some exploded perspective views of a cube having a preferred configuration for some specific embodiments of the fixation devices having those in fig. 1.

Fig. 6 is a view of fig. 5 prior to assembly of the fixture.

FIG. 7 is the view of FIG. 6 with the fixture received in the interior of the cube.

FIG. 8 is a perspective view of a cube having another preferred configuration for some embodiments of the fixation devices similar to those shown in FIG. 1.

Figures 9a, 9b and 9c are some perspective views of a puzzle according to the present invention.

Detailed Description

Fig. 1 shows a schematic view of a longitudinal section of an educational toy component with a first way of embodiment of the movement means, characterized in that it has an axis of rotation 1 parallel to the contact surface 3 and a first magnet 5 is connected to the axis of rotation 1. In this case, the movement is a simple rotation in which the first magnet 5 is rotated perpendicularly about its magnetic axis. The first magnet 5 is joined to the component by some kind of fixing means 7.

Fig. 2 shows a second form of embodiment with some kind of moving means, which is a variant of the embodiment shown in fig. 1 and is characterized in that it has a second magnet 9 connected to the axis of rotation 1 parallel to the contact surface 3, wherein the second magnet 9 has an opposite polarity to the first magnet 5 and is angularly movable in the direction of the axis of rotation 1 compared to the first magnet 5. In particular, in the example of fig. 2, the first magnet 5 and the second magnet 9 are arranged at an angle of 180 ° with respect to the rotation axis 1, which means diametrically opposite with respect to the rotation axis 1. The mode of operation is the same as for the displacement device in fig. 1, except that instead of having a single magnet that is elongated to a different extent, it is possible to have two shorter magnets, but maintaining a pair of elevated forces compared to the axis of rotation 1. When two cubes are close to each other, if the magnets do not have the appropriate polarity, a repulsive force is generated between them, which causes them to rotate around the axis of rotation 1 parallel to the contact surface 3 until the two magnets face each other with the appropriate polarity. The other magnet stays inside the cube; sufficiently far from any other magnet in a way that it does not exercise or experience any significantly increased force.

Fig. 3 shows another example of an embodiment of a mobile device. This situation is characterized by the presence of: [a] a rod 11 forming a longitudinal axis parallel to the contact surface 3, a first magnet 5 being mounted at one of its ends and a second magnet 9 being mounted at the opposite end, wherein the first and second magnets 5 and 9 have opposite polarities to each other, and [ b ] a housing 13 elongated along the longitudinal axis, wherein the housing 13 is dimensioned such that it can be accommodated on the inside of the rod 11 and is adapted such that it will allow the rod 11 to move on the longitudinal axis along the length of the housing 13. In this case, if the two magnets face each other and do not have the correct polarity, the repulsion forces generated force them to move along the housing 13. In the solution shown in fig. 3, it will therefore be possible to have two different cases. If two parts are coming towards each other as shown in fig. 3, attraction will be carried out between the two magnets in the middle of the respective contact surface 3, while the magnets at the two ends will not provide any force for the engagement between the two cubes. However, if one of the parts is turned in the opposite direction as shown in fig. 3 (which means that the magnet at the upper end of the housing 13 according to the drawing will be placed at the bottom end), it will then be possible to exert an attractive force between the four magnets two by two. In this case, the attractive force will have to be greater or smaller in line with the relative position of the two parts. It must be emphasized that the housings 13 need not be parallel, since they can also be perpendicular to each other.

Finally, another form of embodiment of the mobile device is shown in fig. 4. In this case, the moving means has a rotation axis 15 perpendicular to the contact surface 3 and comprises a first magnet 5 and a second magnet 9, the first magnet 5 and the second magnet 9 having magnetic axes parallel to each other and one having opposite polarity to the other, wherein the two magnets 5 and 9 are angularly moved relative to each other in the direction of the rotation axis 15 perpendicular to the contact surface 3, and wherein the magnets 5 and 9 are moved by means of a rotation about the axis 15 perpendicular to the contact surface 3. The two magnets 5 and 9 can be arranged in an asymmetrical manner with respect to the axis of rotation 15 perpendicular to the contact surface 3. They can be in a non-diametrically opposed manner; they can be angularly displaced through 180 but at different distances from the axis of rotation 15 perpendicular to the contact surface 3, etc. However, the axis of rotation 15 perpendicular to the contact surface 3 is preferably located at a point midway between the two magnetic axes.

In the examples shown in fig. 2 and 4, other solutions with more magnets are possible, for example with 4 magnets distributed crosswise around the axis of rotation 1 or 15, respectively.

A practical embodiment of a cube with some moving means as schematically shown in fig. 2 is shown in detail in fig. 5 to 7. The cube has a magnet (first magnet 5 according to the nomenclature used) on each of the faces 3. Thus, a cube can be connected with any other cube with any of its faces. In particular, it is possible to make larger cube cubes, which is the object of the present invention, whose characteristics are to allow any sequential assembly, which means that it can be assembled when the relative position between the cubes is exactly what constitutes any image, or equivalently when it is not. Thus, the reversible connecting means are independent of the toy itself (in order to position the cube in a manner suitable for obtaining the image) and do not give any kind of clues or guidance as to the correct assembly sequence of the cubes. Reversible connecting means are limited to the way in which the cubes are kept connected to each other and positioned by the user.

In fig. 8, a variant of the movement device is shown comprising a cylindrical bush 17, which bush 17 forms a cylindrical housing inside which the magnet 5 (according to the nomenclature used, the first magnet 5) is housed. Two rods 19 project radially from the cylindrical bush 17 opposite each other, the rods 19 having a first section of greater diameter joined to the bush 17 and a second section of smaller diameter at the free end in such a way that both ends are suitable to allow them to be housed in some openings formed in the movement means, wherein these openings define the rotation axis 1 parallel to the surface 3.

In all the foregoing examples, the contact surface 3 has been shown to be planar. This will normally be the case since the geometry of the components is usually simple, such as cubes, parallelepipeds, prisms, cones etc. However, this is not necessarily so. The contact surfaces 3 can be curved, all that is required is that a particular pair of parts has a particular contact surface on one of the parts and the "negative" of the contact surface on the other part. By extension, the surface energy is hemispherical, cylindrical, etc., and even complex geometries. Nor is it necessary that all surfaces of a particular component be contact surfaces, in the sense that they all have a magnet (or magnets) associated with them. Most likely, a particular component contact surface (with its associated magnets) is co-existent with other surfaces that are not contact surfaces, in the sense that the other surfaces have or do not have magnets associated with them.

Figures 9a, 9b and 9c show the specific shape of an embodiment of the cube according to the invention. The cube is made up of 27 cubes which can be combined to make a larger cube of 3 x 3 cubes. Each face 3 of each cube has been identified by means of three numeric and alphabetical codes XYZ. X corresponds to one of the larger assembly cubes: three larger cubes identified as I, II and III can be assembled. Y corresponds to the surface of a larger cube having six surfaces identified as A, B, C, D, E and F. Z corresponds to the position of the face of the cube compared to the face of the larger cube, each face of which is made up of nine faces of nine cubes, identified as 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9.

Claims (6)

1. An educational toy component having a contact surface (3) and having at least one first magnet (5) inside the educational toy component, the magnetic axis of the first magnet (5) facing towards the contact surface (3), characterized in that the first magnet (5) is joined to the component by means of a fixture (7), which fixture (7) has a moving means adapted to move the magnetic axis relative to the contact surface (3) such that any contact surface (3) of any of the components can face any contact surface (3) of any other of the components, the two contact surfaces being joined to each other by the attractive force of the respective magnets.

2. Component according to claim 1, characterized in that the moving means have an axis of rotation (1) parallel to the contact surface (3) and the first magnet (5) is joined to the axis of rotation (1) parallel to the contact surface (3).

3. Component according to claim 2, characterized in that it has a second magnet (9) connected to the axis of rotation (1) parallel to the contact surface (3), wherein the second magnet (9) has an opposite polarity to the first magnet (5) and is angularly displaced with respect to the first magnet (5) in the direction of the axis of rotation (1) parallel to the contact surface (3).

4. The component of claim 1, wherein the moving means has: [a] a rod (11) defining a longitudinal axis parallel to said contact surface (3), and said first magnet (5) being mounted at one of its ends and a second magnet (9) being mounted at the opposite end, wherein the polarities of said first and second magnets are opposite to each other, and [ b ] a housing (13) elongated along said longitudinal axis, said housing (13) having such dimensions that it is suitable to internally house said rod (11) and to move said rod (11) along said housing (13) on said longitudinal axis.

5. Component according to claim 1, characterized in that the moving means have an axis of rotation (15) perpendicular to the contact surface (3) and comprise the first magnet (5) and a second magnet (9), wherein the first and second magnets have magnetic axes parallel to each other and each have a polarity opposite to the other, wherein the first and second magnets (5, 9) move angularly from one to the other in the direction of the axis of rotation (15) perpendicular to the contact surface (3), and wherein the magnets move by means of rotation about the axis of rotation (15) perpendicular to the contact surface (3).

6. A component according to claim 5, characterized in that the axis of rotation (15) perpendicular to the contact surface (3) is located at a mid-point between the magnetic axes.