Patent Application
20050011378
NOT APPLICABLE
NOT APPLICABLE
The present invention relates to the field of stamping devices, particularly to the field of handheld stamping toys for use in imprinting indicia, such as characters and designs, on a sheet of material. In addition, the present invention relates to the field of educational toys, particularly for use in teaching children language skills.
Children learn letters, numbers and the names of various objects by audible repetition accompanied with visualization of the object. Often, a parent or teacher will read a book aloud while pointing to the object depicted by the word which is read. In this way, the child is able to visually associate the object with its name. This method of teaching is generally passive, i.e., there may be little interaction between the child and subject matter. Interactive teaching methods using multiple sensory perceptions are more effective than mere memorization.
It is known that voice synthesizers are used as communication devices for disabled adults. One such example is described in Medical & Biological Engineering and Computing, January 1979, titled “Verbal Communication Aid for Non-Vocal Patients.” This article describes a voice synthesizer to speed communication for speech impaired patients. Each device includes a keyboard networked via a commercial telephone by a wire connection to a central voice generating system. The use of the central system permits many individual boards to employ a single-control unit, thereby reducing the total cost of each device. In this way, a number of boards in a single geographic area can utilize the same control unit.
This device may additionally be used as a teaching or translation aid for children. In such an application, the keys are covered with letters or numbers and, when depressed, produce a voice response. This device is advantageous in that a child may use the device interactively alone, without close supervision. The parent or teacher can then attend to other matters. However, the keys are substantially identical, the differences appearing only in a typed letter on each key.
An article title “μ C-Based Key-to-Speech Synthesizer Gives Stroke Victims A Voice” (EDN Desion News Feb. 20, 1978) by Sam Davis discloses a system for producing the basic sounds of speech. Each spoken word is broken into phonemes to simulate a word. This system uses phonemic command words to control a synthesizer. Other devices use voice synthesis devices for various purposes. U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,357,489 to Henderson, et al., assigned to Texas Instruments Incorporated, and U.S. Pat. No. 4,689,817 to Kroon each disclose an integrated circuit for synthesizing speech. U.S. Pat. No. 4,646,350 to Batra employs such an integrated circuit in a child's shoe to provide an audible message when opening of closing the shoe.
Prior art devices, however, fail to provide meaningful visual indicia attractive to children which can facilitate learning when incorporating voice synthesis devices. The device described herein provides many advantages over prior art devices in such a way as to invite interaction with children and facilitate the learning process for speaking, reading and memorization.
The present invention provides a stamping apparatus with an audio feature thereby providing a “talking stamper” for entertainment or educational purposes. The talking stamper provides sounds for the user, particularly in response to a stamping action. The stamper has at least one raised indicium configured to form an imprint of the indicium on a sheet of material during the stamping action. In preferred embodiments, the indicium has the form of a letter of an alphabet or a picture of an object related to a letter of an alphabet. In these embodiments, the sounds provided to the user are related to the letter and/or object, including but not limited to a pronunciation of the letter, a phoneme of the letter, a sound related to the object, or a song. In this way, the stamper is used to teach concepts in the areas of graphophonemic knowledge and phonemic awareness by improving skills related to letters, letter sounds, letter/object association and vocabulary. In addition, the stamper offers object-handling activities for children that help improve motor control, precision and accuracy of movement which are foundational skills for future small-motor skills. Further, the stamper provides an opportunity for creative play and entertainment.
In preferred embodiments, the talking stamper allows a child to stamp out letters and/or pictures with the use of an ink pad while learning letter names and sounds. In these embodiments, the stamper has at least one stamping structure bearing 26 letters of the alphabet and 26 associated pictures of objects, wherein the name of each object starts with the corresponding letter of the alphabet (i.e., A, ant). On the side of the stamper, there is a selection dial that allows the child to select one of the 26 letters of the alphabet, one of the 26 pictures, or both. Near the bottom of the stamper, there is a mode switch that allows the child to choose between at least three play modes. To select a one of the 26 letters, the mode switch is changed to the Letter Mode. When the Letter Mode is selected, the stamper may say “Let's stamp letters!” and a melody may play quietly in the background. When the selection dial is rotated, the letters are called out, “A, B, C, D, E, etc.!”. This audio is preferably interruptable so that the child may hear bits and pieces of the beginnings of different letters as the dial is rotated. Selection of a desired letter positions the indicium of the desired letter at the bottom of the stamper and the associated picture of the object is covered. Upon such selection, the stamper may provide additional sounds, such as “B says Buh!”. A stamping action creates an imprint of the selected letter on a sheet of material, preferably a sheet of paper. In addition, each stamping action causes the stamper to make a sound such as “B!”.
To select a one of the 26 pictures of objects, the mode switch is changed to the Object Mode. When the Object Mode is selected, the stamper may say “Let's stamp pictures! ” and a background beat may play quietly in the background. When the selection dial is rotated, the names of the pictures are called out, “Apple, Ball, Cat, etc.!”. This audio is preferably interruptable so that the child may hear bits and pieces of the beginnings of different object names as the dial is rotated. Selection of a desired object positions the indicium of the desired object at the bottom of the stamper and the associated letter is covered. Upon such selection, the unit may provide additional sounds, such as “Ball starts with the letter B! ”. A stamping action creates an imprint of the selected picture. In addition, each stamping action causes the stamper to make a sound such as “Ball!”.
To select a pair of one of the 26 letters and 26 associated pictures of objects, the mode switch is changed to the Song Mode. When the Song Mode is selected, the stamper may say “Let's stamp and sing! ”. The desired pair is selected by rotating the selection dial. Selection of a desired pair positions the indicia of the desired pair at the bottom of the stamper and neither of the indicia are covered. The stamper may play a song, such as Old MacDonald. The song may prompt the child to stamp a letter and object pair and once stamped the stamper may insert audio for that letter into the song.
The above described activities teach letter names and phonemes, teach the beginning sounds of words, corresponds letter names and phonemes to stamped upper case letters, corresponds a word to a stamped picture and reinforces phonemes throughout songs, to name a few. In addition, the talking stamper is fun to use for entertainment and play.
It may be appreciated that the talking stamper is not limited to the indicia used in the above example. Any indicia may be used, such as any graphical representations, printed indicia or numerical representations, or any combination thereof. Likewise, any number of stamping structures may be present bearing any number of raised indicia. The indicia may be constant or selectable, in any combination or arrangement. In addition, other objects and advantages of the present invention will become apparent from the detailed description to follow, together with the accompanying drawings.
Description of Stamping Apparatus
In this embodiment, the raised indicia 22a, 22b are selectable by the user. Thus, the stamping apparatus 10 includes a dial 30 within its top portion 14 for selecting the desired indicium or indicia, in this example indicia 22a, 22b.
Again, it may be appreciated that although the indicia include letters and pictures in the preferred embodiments, the indicia can have any suitable form. For example, the indicia may comprise numbers, symbols, shapes, designs, graphical representations or any combination thereof.
The plurality of indicia 22 may be disposed on the stamping structure 20 in any suitable arrangement. In preferred embodiments, the stamping structure 20 comprises a belt 40 and the plurality of indicia 22 are disposed sequentially along the belt 40.
It may be appreciated that the stamping apparatus 10 of the present invention may have a single stamping structure 20 which provides a single raised indicium 22 for stamping action. For example, the stamping structure 20 may comprise a planar rubber slab having a single raised indicium thereon. The rubber slab may be stationary or may simply move up and down in some embodiments, for example. Alternatively, the stamping apparatus 10 may have a single stamping structure 20 and a plurality of raised indicia 22 which are selectable. For example, the stamping structure 20 may comprise a single belt having a plurality of raised indicia 22 positioned sequentially thereon. The belt may have only letters or only numbers, for example. Or, more than one stamping structure 20 may be present, each having a single raised indicium 22 or a plurality of raised indicia 22, wherein the stamping structure 20 and/or the indicia 22 may be independently or dependently selectable. Such selection will be further described in the “Modes of Play” section.
It may be appreciated that various modifications to the stamping apparatus 10 are possible. For example, the preferred stamping apparatus described herein uses a separate ink pad to provide ink to the stamping structure. In other embodiments, an ink reservoir may be provided in the stamping apparatus 10 using the known technology of self-inking stampers.
Audio
Although the stamping apparatus 10 may be used as a mechanical stamping device without audio, the audio portion of the “talking stamper” provides a desirable aspect of the present invention. The stamping apparatus 10 includes a processor, a sound generator coupled to the processor and a speaker operatively connected to the processor wherein the sound generator and speaker are capable of producing audio. Referring back to
The audio that is produced by the stamping apparatus 10 may relate to the indicia 22 in any suitable manner. For example, in some embodiments, the audio may relate to the color, size, character, or name of an indicum 22 being stamped. The audio may also be in the form of the English language and/or may include one or more foreign languages such as Spanish, Japanese, German, etc. If the indicia 22 comprise letters or phonemes, the sounds associated with the letters or phonemes may be produced by the stamping apparatus 10. Phonemes are discussed in detail in U.S. Pat. No. 5,188,533, which is herein incorporated by reference in its entirety.
The processor circuitry utilized in a preferred embodiment of the invention will now be described. The following implementation is but one of many possible implementations, as is readily apparent to those skilled in the art. The following circuitry is for illustrative purposes only. Similar circuitry, suitably modified, may be employed in other embodiments of the present invention, but such circuitry should not be viewed as limiting the invention, as numerous other electronic implementations may be employed by one skilled in the art without departing from the scope of the invention as disclosed, taught and claimed herein.
Turning attention now to
The chip or chips that are used may comprise an integrated circuit speech synthesis system (for example the device taught in U.S. Pat. No. 4,357,489 to Henderson, et al. as developed by Texas Instruments Incorporated, or suitable alternative). Many speech synthesis integrated circuits are presently commercially available in a wide variety of configurations, and are well known in the art. The variations between available synthesis chips include the amount of memory for synthesis information stored which is used to provide an output signal in the form of a frequency used to drive a speaker. The output signal can be long or short as necessary for the particular application.
Referring now to
It should be noted that the functional block diagram of
Modes of Play
The audio portion of the “talking stamper” is provided through at least one play mode, preferably a plurality of play modes. Referring back to
Here, the mode switch 50 allows the user to change between four modes of play. When the ring 52 is positioned to select the first mode, rotation of the dial 30 allows the user to select a first indicia 22a from the first belt 40a. In a preferred embodiment, wherein the first indicia 22a are letters of the alphabet, the first mode is the “Letter Mode”. In some embodiments, selection of the first mode will cause the speaker to produce a sound. In the preferred embodiment, the sound from the speaker may include, “Let's stamp letters!” Alternatively or in addition, a melody or Letter Mode Intro Jingle may play which may optionally continue quietly in the background throughout the use of the Letter Mode.
While in the Letter Mode, rotation of the dial 30 selects a letter for stamping (i.e. positions the desired first indicia 22a within the orifice 18). Turning the dial 30 passes each indicium representation 34 or letter by arrow 36 on housing 12. The speaker may produce a different sound as each letter passes, such as a pronunciation of the passing letter. This audio is heard almost immediately upon reaching a letter on dial 30. For example, as the dial 30 is turned, “A, B, C, D, E, etc!” is heard. If the dial 30 pauses on a letter, such as for 1 second time, an alternate audio may be produced, such as a phoneme of the letter. For example, pausing on the letter “B” may produce an audio of “B says Buh”. The user may then make a stamping action. Each time the user makes a stamping action, the audio may be repeated, “B says Buh”, the pronunciation of the letter may be heard, “B!”, or another audio may be heard. In addition, if the letter has multiple phonemes, audio may be heard for each phoneme, such as “Letter A says Long-A and Short-A”. It may be appreciated that a variety of different audio sequence may be provided for each letter as described in Provisional Patent Application No. 60/436,723, incorporated herein by reference for all purposes.
When the ring 52 is positioned to select the second mode, rotation of the dial 30 allows the user to select a second indicia 22b from the second belt 40b. In a preferred embodiment, wherein the second indicia 22b are pictures of object related to letters of the alphabet, the second mode is the “Object Mode”. In some embodiments, selection of the second mode will cause the speaker to produce a sound. In the preferred embodiment, the sound from the speaker may include, “Let's stamp pictures!” Alternatively or in addition, a melody or Object Mode Intro Jingle may play which may optionally continue quietly in the background throughout the use of the Object Mode.
While in the Object Mode, rotation of the dial 30 selects an object for stamping (i.e. positions the desired second indicia 22b within the orifice 18). Turning the dial 30 passes each indicium representation 34 or object by arrow 36 on housing 12. The speaker may produce a different sound as each object passes, such as a pronunciation of the name of the passing object. This audio is heard almost immediately upon reaching a object on dial 30. If the dial 30 pauses on a object, such as for 1 second time, an alternate audio may be produced. For example, pausing on the object “Dog” may produce an audio of “Dog starts with the letter D”. The user may then make a stamping action. Each time the user makes a stamping action, the audio may be repeated, “Dog starts with the letter D”, or another audio may be heard, such as “Ruff! Ruff!” or “Dog!”. It may be that appreciated a variety of different audio sequences may be provided for each object as described in Provisional Patent Application No. 60/436,723, incorporated herein by reference for all purposes.
When the ring 52 is positioned to select the third mode, rotation of the dial 30 allows the user to simultaneously select a first indicia 22a and a second indicia 22b from the first belt 40a and second belt 40b, respectively. In a preferred embodiment, wherein the first indicia 22a are letters and the second indicia 22b are pictures of object related to the letters, the third mode is the “Song Mode”. In some embodiments, selection of the third mode will cause the speaker to produce a sound. In a preferred embodiment, the sound from the speaker may include, “Let's stamp and sing!”.
While in the Song Mode, rotation of the dial 30 selects a pair (a letter and an associated object) for stamping (i.e. positions the desired indicia 22a, 22b within the orifice 18). Turning the dial 30 passes each indicium representation 34 by arrow 36 on housing 12. The speaker may produce a different sound as each pair passes, such as a pronunciation of the passing letter and the name of the passing object, such as “B! Ball!”. This audio is heard almost immediately upon reaching a object on dial 30. If the dial 30 pauses on a object, such as for 1 second time, an alternate audio may be produced. For example, pausing on the pair of this example may produce an audio of song intro music and “B! Ball!”. The music may continue for approximately 8 seconds. The user may then make a stamping action. The first time the user makes a stamping action, the audio may provide part 1 of a song background music, a narrative such as “B! B! Ball!, children's singing voices such as “Starts with the letter.” and additional narrative such as “B!”, to name a few. A second stamping action may provide alternative audio, such as part 2 of a song background music, children's singing voices such as “Every letter makes a sound.”, narrative such as “B! B!” and additional children's voices such as “Stamp it!”, to name a few. A third stamping action may provide yet further alternative audio, such as part 3 of a song background music, a sound such as “Boing!” and narrative such as “Ball!”, to name a few. It may be appreciated that a different audio sequence is provided for each pair as described in Provisional Patent Application No. 60/436,723, incorporated herein by reference for all purposes. Alternatively or in addition, selection of the Song Mode may produce a song such as “Old MacDonald”. The song may prompt the user to stamp a pair and once the pair is stamped audio related to the pair may be inserted into the song. Thus, the song would continue to play throughout selection of a given pair.
When the ring 52 is positioned to select the fourth mode, the audio portion of the stamping apparatus 10 is turned OFF. Once in the OFF position, the audio may be turned on by switching to another mode. Alternatively, the audio may shut off by a time-out mechanism which is actuated if the stamping apparatus 10 is not touched for a designated amount of time or if the volume switch is changed to MUTE. The audio can be turned on when the time-out mechanism has been actuated by switching to a mode other than OFF, rotating the dial 30, switching the volume to LOW or HIGH, or making a stamping action, to name a few.
It may be appreciated that any of the modes of play or functions described herein can be programmed into the stamping apparatus by those of ordinary skill in the art.
Dimensions
The stamping apparatus 10 may have any suitable dimensions for a handheld device. Example dimensions for the housing 12 are approximately 7 inches in length, approximately 3 inches in width near the top portion 14 and approximately 2.25 inches in width near the bottom portion 16. Narrower widths, preferably 1.5 inches, near the bottom portion 16 are preferred to assist in grasping by small children. In some embodiments, the orifice 18 is approximately 0.5 inch×0.5 inch in size to allow approximately a 0.5 inch×0.5 inch portion of a stamping structure 20 to protrude therethrough. And, typical speakers have approximately a 1.25 to 2 inch diameter.
Accessories
Although the stamping apparatus 10 may be used by itself to create imprints on any suitable material, the apparatus 10 may be provided in a system with additional accessories. A few examples of such accessories are provided below:
Ink Pad
Any conventional ink pad may be used with and provided with the stamping apparatus 10. These conventional ink pads vary in size and are typically contained in plastic or metal containers with a closure lid to prevent the ink from drying out when the pad is not in use. These pads are usually formed of cotton felt and then enclosed with a thin fabric of cotton or linen.
Preferred ink pads for use with the stamping apparatus 10 have a container that is about 3″×2.5″ in size, dries within approximately 5 seconds, is non-smearing, washable and non-toxic. The ink pads may have one or more ink colors of any color, however blue and green ink are preferred.
Activity Pages
One or more activity pages may be provided for use with the stamping apparatus 10.
The activity pages 100 may be provided singularly or bound in a book or booklet. In some embodiments, the pages 100 are arranged so that when the booklet is spread open, one side of the spread will show the activity page 100 and the other side of the spread will be blank so that the child can free-play stamping letters and/or objects throughout the page. When closed, the booklet's dimensions are preferably approximately 4.5″×8.5″.
Alternatively or in addition, the activity pages 100 may be provided on a website. The pages 100 can then be printed on a personal printer so that the child can do the activities again and again. In addition, newly updated activity pages 100 can be continuously provided.
Any features of any embodiments may be combined with features of other embodiments without departing from the scope of the invention. For example, the above described ink pad and/or activity pages may be combined in a system with any of the above described stamping apparatuses without departing from the scope of the invention.
Although the foregoing invention has been described in some detail by way of illustration and example, for purposes of clarity of understanding, it will be obvious that various alternatives, modifications and equivalents may be used and the above description should not be taken as limiting in scope of the invention which is defined by the appended claims. In addition, all publications and patent applications cited in this specification are herein incorporated by reference as if each individual publication or patent application were specifically and individually indicated to be incorporated by reference.
This application claims the benefit and priority of U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 60/436,723, filed Dec. 27, 2002, the full disclosure of which is hereby incorporated by reference for all purposes.
| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 60436723 | Dec 2002 | US |
