Other

Laurence Jay Shaw

Richard H Wyles

Joseph John Bendik, Jr

A toy having three bobs on a string where the middle bob slides. A low moment of inertia of the middle bob is desirable because it minimizes tangling of the string about the middle bob and produces smooth, tactile-appealing orbits. Each bob has a pair of mated throughbore pieces sandwiching a central metal weight and an equatorial bag stuffed with low-density pellets. Concave sections (in profile on a plane along the polar axis) of the throughbore occupy a substantial portion of the length of the throughbore to take best advantage of the torques produced by the string by focusing the tension of the string at the mouths of the throughbore. The concave sections also reduce the volume occupied by the bag, thereby reducing moment of inertia. Additionally, hollows in the concave regions of the throughbore pieces further reduce the moment of inertia.

Orbiting bob toy with bobs having pellet-filled equatorial bags

A swinging bob toy having three bobs constrained to a string with at least the center bob being slideable along the string. Each bob is modular and consists of two hemispheric elastomeric mantle pieces, a three-component throughbore sheath, and one or two hex nuts mounted on a threaded central component of the throughbore sheath. The two end components of the throughbore sheath are flared and are non-elastomeric, while the threaded central component is elastomeric. The outside ends of the flared end components of the sheath are recessed relative to the mouths of the throughbore so that all exterior impact surfaces of the bob are elastomeric. The string has a circular cross-section and has a width greater than 50% of the width of the narrowest diameter of the throughbore.

Orbiting bob toy having modular bobs with a recessed throughbore sheath and customizable weighting

Parallax ghosting is mitigated in a mounted lenticular grating with for many-frame animation by having lenticules at an offset angle &#x3b1; relative to the viewing vertical and incorporating ghosting in the base images. Where &#x3a9; is an angular range orthogonal to the longitudinal axes of the lenticules over which m picture slices in the base graphic are viewable, V is the distance between the viewer's eyes, and L is the distance of the viewer from the lenticular grating, the number N of picture slices viewed due to the parallax effect given by2(&#x3a9;)arc tan(|cos &#x3b1;|2 L).The above variables are chosen such that the number N of viewed picture slices is not too large. Ghosting of foreground images from neighboring frames is added to mitigate parallax-induced washing-out of colors. To create a three-dimensional effect, ghosted images are shifted in position by an amount related to their intended distance out-of-plane.

Mounted lenticular grating with parallax ghosting mitigation for many-frame animation

A stringed-instrument slide () which is a truncated conical shell with the narrower end at the top () and with a roughly semi-circular cut-away () along the base (), so a substantial portion of the mass is below the level of the finger-palm joint. The mass of the slide () is predominantly born by the region of contact of the slide () with the palm () rather than along the pinky () so the slide () has the sensation of being 'balanced' and relatively 'weightless' on the pinky () and the pressure applied by the pinky () corresponds closely to the actual pressure of the slide () on the strings, and the forces and torques required to move the slide () onto and off of the strings is reduced, thereby facilitating play, particularly rapid and/or nuanced play.

Balanced stringed-instrument pinky slide

A swinging bob toy having three bobs constrained on a string, the middle bob being slideably constrained between the two end bobs, and at least one of the bobs being reversibly separable into two partial bobs. A wide variety of new tricks and maneuvers are made possible by the separability of the bobs. The two partial bobs have roughly the same weight thereby providing balanced orbits. Each of the two partial bobs slides less easily along the string than a non-separated bob. The two partial bobs have roughly the same diameter along at least one axis thereby allowing visual illusions to be performed.

Swinging bob toy with reversibly separable bobs

A swinging bob toy having an outer bob and middle bob on a string, with the middle bob having a bore through which the string passes to allow the middle bob to slide along the string. The middle bob has a substantially toroidal, liquid-containing bladder. The mass of the liquid contributes substantially to the overall mass of the middle bob, but the viscosity of the liquid and the dimensions of the bore of the toroid are such that the dynamic moment of inertia (i.e., a moment of inertia dependent on linear and/or rotational velocity and/or acceleration, of a history thereof) is small as the middle bob begins its rotation as the outer bob passes the top of its orbit. The viscosity of the liquid is small enough that as the outer bob traverses the top of its orbit the dynamic moment of inertia is small and the string does not tangle about the middle bob, yet large enough that as the outer bob traverses the bottom of its orbit the rotation of the middle bob is slowed and the string tension does not exhibit a rapid peak.

Swinging bob toy with liquid-containing bobs

Swinging bob toy with middle bob having non-cylindrically symmetric weight distribution

An edible confection with a recognizable shape which repeatedly rises and sinks, i.e., &ldquo;swims,&rdquo; in a transparent carbonated beverage due to changing buoyancy resulting from the formation of carbonation bubbles on the surface of the confection, and the escape of the bubbles to the atmosphere when the confection reaches the top of the beverage. The ability of the confection to ascend and descend is determined by the density, volume and surface area of the confection, and the volume per unit surface area of bubbles which form on the confection. For a thin confection the conditions for ascension and descension are substantially independent of the dimensions other than the thickness. Bubble nucleation is promoted by a surface which is rough on small length scales, and large bubbles can be retained on the surface if the confection is smooth on larger length scales. A low solubility confection is preferred because the dimensions of the confection and its surface properties are relatively invariant with time, and the submerged confection has little effect on the appearance and the level of carbonation of the beverage. The number of confections in the beverage is chosen to be large enough that one or more confections are usually in motion, yet not so large that the confections inhibit the swimming motions of each other. In a preferred embodiment the confections are soft and colorful, and the recognizable shapes of the confections are marine-related shapes.

Confections that &ldquo;swim&rdquo; in a carbonated beverage

A cylindrical metal disc is optimized to spin/roll on a base for an extended length of time, and as the angle of inclination of the disc decreases to zero, a tone emitted by the spinning/rolling of the disc rises in pitch towards infinity. To optimize the spinning/rolling time, the radius-to-height aspect ratio of the disc is approximately three, the upper surface of the base and the lower edge of the disc are smooth and hard to enable the disc to spin/roll for an extended length of time, and the base has three legs and is solidly constructed to minimize energy losses due to vibration. The upper surface of the base is concave to prevent the disc from wandering as it spins/rolls. The top of the disc is tessellated with tiles having effectively random optic orientations to produce the appearance of a cloud of sparkling lights in the vicinity of the top surface of the disc as it spins/rolls.

Spinning/rolling disc

A swinging bob toy having bobs which are fastened to, or free to slide along a string. The design of the toy provides that: the string will have a lessened tendency to become tangled during operation, the toy will have a smoothness of motion, and be capable of new tricks and maneuvers, the toy will not become tangled during transportation thereof and will be safer to use. The bobs can be made of an edible material or chewing gum. A tubular storage case can be used to store the bob toy.

Growing community of inventors

San Francisco, CA, United States of America

Laurence Jay Shaw