Patent Application
20230338804
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The disclosure relates to cup and ball devices and more particularly pertains to a new cup and ball device for facilitating a user to practice a game of skill involving tossing a ball into a ring. The device includes a mounting bracket that can be positioned on a top of a door and a support arm that extends downwardly from the mounting bracket. A ring is attached to the support arm and a stub arm angles away from the support arm. An extension arm can be slid into the stub arm, a tether is attached to the extension arm and a ball is attached to the tether. In this way a user can repeatedly toss the ball at the ring in the attempt to land the ball on the ring.
The prior art relates to cup and ball devices including game of skill that includes a tower, a ball suspended from the tower and a tic-tac-toe board. The prior art discloses a variety of ball and cup games that each includes a bracket that is attachable to a vertical panel, a cup integrated into the panel and a ball suspended from the panel. The prior art discloses a variety of hook and ring games that each includes a stand, a tower extending upwardly from the stand, a ring suspended from the tower and a hook attached to the stand. The prior art discloses ball and cup game that includes a ball that is suspended from a horizontal surface, a backboard that is mounted to a vertical surface and a cup that that is attached to the backboard. The prior art discloses a ring and hook game that includes a base, a curved stanchion extending upwardly from the base, a ring suspended from the curved stanchion and a hook attached to the curved stanchion.
An embodiment of the disclosure meets the needs presented above by generally comprising a mounting bracket that has a door slot thereby facilitating the mounting bracket to be positioned on a door in a building. A support arm is coupled to the mounting bracket and the support arm extends downwardly along the door and away from the door when the mounting bracket is positioned on the door. A ring is coupled to the support arm and the ring lies on a horizontal plane when the mounting bracket is positioned on the door. A stub arm is coupled to support arm and an extension arm insertably receives the stub arm for removably attaching the extending arm on the stub arm. A tether is disposed on the extension arm and a ball is coupled to the tether thereby facilitating the ball to be thrown toward the ring by a user to test the user's aim and skill.
There has thus been outlined, rather broadly, the more important features of the disclosure in order that the detailed description thereof that follows may be better understood, and in order that the present contribution to the art may be better appreciated. There are additional features of the disclosure that will be described hereinafter and which will form the subject matter of the claims appended hereto.
The objects of the disclosure, along with the various features of novelty which characterize the disclosure, are pointed out with particularity in the claims annexed to and forming a part of this disclosure.
The disclosure will be better understood and objects other than those set forth above will become apparent when consideration is given to the following detailed description thereof. Such description makes reference to the annexed drawings wherein:
With reference now to the drawings, and in particular to
As best illustrated in
A support arm 30 is provided that has a primary portion 32 which is perpendicularly oriented with a secondary portion 34. The primary portion 32 is coupled to the mounting bracket 12 such that the primary portion 32 extends downwardly along the door 16 and the secondary portion 34 extends away from the door 16 when the mounting bracket 12 is positioned on the door 16. The support arm 30 has a first end 36, a second end 38 and an outer surface 40 extending between the first end 36 and the second end 38, and the outer surface 40 has a front side 42 and a back side 44. The back side 44 is bonded to a forward surface 46 of the front section 22 of the mounting bracket 12 at a connection point 48 located adjacent to the first end 36 of the support arm 30, and the support arm 30 is centrally positioned along a width of the front section 22 of the mounting bracket 12.
The first end 36 is aligned with the central section 18 of the mounting bracket 12 and the first end 36 is angled to slope downwardly from the central section 18. The support arm 30 has a bend 50 that is positioned closer to the second end 38 than the first end 36 to define the primary portion 32 of the support arm 30 and the secondary portion 34 of the support arm 30. The primary portion 32 is associated with the first end 36, the secondary portion 34 is associated with the second end 38 and the secondary portion 34 lies on a horizontal plane when the mounting bracket 12 is positioned on the door 16.
A ring 52 is coupled to the secondary portion 34 of the support arm 30 and the ring 52 lies on a horizontal plane when the mounting bracket 12 is positioned on the door 16. The ring 52 has an outside surface 54 and the outside surface 54 is attached to the second end 38 of the support arm 30. A stub arm 56 is coupled to and angles away from the support arm 30 and the stub arm 56 is oriented to angle upwardly when the mounting bracket 12 is positioned on the door 16. The stub arm 56 is positioned on the front side 42 of the outer surface 40 of the support arm 30 corresponding to the primary portion 32 of the support arm 30. Furthermore, the stub arm 56 is positioned closer to the first end 36 of the support arm 30 than the bend 50, and the stub arm 56 has a distal end 58 with respect to the support arm 30.
An extension arm 60 insertably receives the stub arm 56 for removably attaching the extension arm 60 on the stub arm 56. The extension arm 60 has a primary end 62, a secondary end 64 and a lower surface 66 extending between the primary end 62 and the secondary end 64, and the primary end 62 has a well 68 extending toward the secondary end 64. The well 68 insertably receives the distal end 58 of the stub arm 56 such that the extension arm 60 angles upwardly from the support arm 30. An eyehook 70 is coupled to the extension arm 60, the eyehook 70 is positioned on the lower surface 66 of the extension arm 60 at a point located adjacent to the second end 38 of the extension arm 60 and the eyehook 70 includes a ring 71 that is spaced from the lower surface 66.
A tether 72 is coupled to the eyehook 70, the tether 72 has an upper end 74 and a lower end 76, and the upper end 74 is attached to the ring 71 of the eyehook 70. A ball 78 is coupled to the tether 72 thereby facilitating the ball 78 to be thrown toward the ring 52 by a user 79 such that the ball 78 lands in the ring 52 when the ball 78 is accurately thrown to test the user's 79 aim and skill. The ball 78 has an outside surface 80, a ring 82 is attached to the outside surface 80 and the lower end 76 of the tether 72 is attached to the ring 82 on the outside surface 80 of the ball 78. Furthermore, the tether 72 has a length that is sufficient to facilitate the ball 78 to be suspended at a point located lower than the ring 52 when the mounting bracket 12 is positioned on the door 16. The ball 78 is weighted to a sufficient degree to impart a satisfying mass to the ball 78 when the ball 78 is thrown as well as to reduce the likelihood that the ball 78 will bounce out of the ring 52 in the event that the ball 78 lands in the ring 52.
In use, the mounting bracket 12 is positioned on top of the door 16 such that the support arm 30 extends downwardly along the door 16. The extension arm 60 is positioned on the stub arm 56 for suspending the ball 78 from the tether 72. The user 79 stands a predetermined distance away from the door 16, the user 79 grabs the ball 78 and the user 79 tosses the ball 78 at the ring 52 in the attempt to land the ball 78 on the ring 52. The user 79 continually tosses the ball 78 at the ring 52 until such time that the ball 78 lands and remains on the ring 52. The extension arm 60 is removed from the stub arm 56 for storage. In this way the door 16 can be opened and closed normally without requiring 52 the mounting bracket 12 to be removed from the door 16.
With respect to the above description then, it is to be realized that the optimum dimensional relationships for the parts of an embodiment enabled by the disclosure, to include variations in size, materials, shape, form, function and manner of operation, assembly and use, are deemed readily apparent and obvious to one skilled in the art, and all equivalent relationships to those illustrated in the drawings and described in the specification are intended to be encompassed by an embodiment of the disclosure.
Therefore, the foregoing is considered as illustrative only of the principles of the disclosure. Further, since numerous modifications and changes will readily occur to those skilled in the art, it is not desired to limit the disclosure to the exact construction and operation shown and described, and accordingly, all suitable modifications and equivalents may be resorted to, falling within the scope of the disclosure. In this patent document, the word “comprising” is used in its non-limiting sense to mean that items following the word are included, but items not specifically mentioned are not excluded. A reference to an element by the indefinite article “a” does not exclude the possibility that more than one of the element is present, unless the context clearly requires that there be only one of the elements.
