Other

Judith Ann Shackelford

Paul Mulhauser

Paul J Kotowski

A child's construction set contains virtual intelligence, is interactive and smart, characteristics that may be exhibited to a player during player construction activity with the set and, thereafter, during continuing play and instills a sense of unpredictability to play. The set incorporates a programmed controller ( ), a speaker ( ), special (&ldquo;smart&rdquo;) play pieces or blocks ( , et cet.) and a base ( ) on which to position the play pieces or blocks. Sensors (A1-C3), referred to as &ldquo;hot spots&rdquo;, are distributed at various positions about the base and are coupled to the controller, whereby the controller identifies special play pieces and the location of those play pieces when the respective play piece is installed at one of those positions. Some of the special play pieces may depict characters, some contain electrically operated devices, and some contain a player operated input device. The controller issues speech messages or other audible effects through the speaker to effect a virtual personality to the character play pieces; controls operation of electrically operated devices in special blocks, and detects and responds to player inputs from the player input blocks. Through wireless communication devices, the controller may acquire information from and supply speech messages to accessory blocks that are used off the base of the construction set.

Smart blocks

A child's electronic playset defines a setting or character environment (,) for various toy characters (,), play pieces, representing persons or fantasy characters, which the player may move about that environment. Through its electronics (,) the environment possesses built-in intelligence and defines virtual beings through spoken messages which are attributed by the player to the toy characters, creating a virtual universe. Markers (,) identify each toy character to the environment when checked by the environment's sensors (,S,S,) enabling the environment to know which characters are present and to call up an appropriate dialog there between to broadcast through a loudspeaker (,). The environment also keeps track of the time of day, enabling it to know the order in which toy characters are placed in the environment and possess the ability to call up a dialog appropriate to certain hours in the day.

Electronic interactive play environment for toy characters

An index tray is pivoted in a housing, the tray having a recess for receiving a sticky coated disc and resiliently urged out of the housing for receiving the disc. An alignment detent device holds the tray in a retracted position in the housing cavity with the disc aligned at a predetermined location. A sheet of paper with pictorial or graphical indicia thereon is inserted into the cavity above the tray and disc. A transparent cylindrical press knob permits visual alignment of the indicia to the disc. Blades attached to the knob lower edge penetrate the sheet when the knob is depressed. A clamp coupled to the knob clamps the sheet to the tray in response to depressing the knob. After the knob is depressed, it is permitted to rotate in one direction only by a ratchet device to sever the sheet into a mating disc shape for attachment to the sticky surface of the disc on the tray. After the sheet is cut, the knob is lifted automatically and the tray, when released, springs open. An ejector mechanism on the tray ejects the completed decorative disc from the tray. An interlock precludes the blades from engaging the tray before the tray is placed in the cutting position.

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Beverly Hills, CA, United States of America

Judith Ann Shackelford