1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to producing audio in response to stimuli, and more particularly to generating a recognizable verbal sound or series of verbal sounds in complete synchronization with animation, such as with a manually controlled puppet figure.
2. General Background and State of the Art
Novelty items, such as greeting cards, toys and puppets which have mouths or opposed moving members and which are also capable of producing voice-like sounds are known in the art. One of the primary objects of such items is to give the user the impression that the item is actually “speaking” or “singing” in conjunction with the movement of the mouth or jaws as they are moved by the user and thus providing the user with more accurate control over the verbal audible events produced by the toy or puppet.
For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,768,232 to Milner discloses a hand-held puppet figure configured to represent a living being having hand-controllable moving parts to simulate some form of animation of the figure's mouth. The figure is provided with sound-generating apparatus. A sensor in the form of a light-sensitive photocell is mounted in the figure's mouth to allow hand-controlled animation of the puppet to vary the light received by the photocell to produce a signal indicative of mouth movement by detecting changes in light. A frequency generator, including a voltage-controlled oscillator responsive to a voltage derived from an output counter, produces a tone signal having a pseudo-randomly varying frequency in the audio range. The tone signal is applied to a modulator and used to modulate the signal produced by the photocell, resulting in an audio signal having a pseudo-randomly varying pitch component, not controllable by hand movements, and an amplitude (loudness) that is variable by hand movement. When applied to a speaker, a pseudo-articulate simulated sound is produced, such as quacking or barking. The user of the figure can produce a sound, the loudness of which is coordinated with the hand-controllable parts. The sound produced is not a spoken or sung voice simulating any form of understandable speech.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,651,716 to Mowrer, et al., discloses a sound modulating toy figure that includes resilient jaw members movable between open and closed positions. The jaw members are operated by using a manual lever-type actuator. The toy also includes a sound-producing unit including a speaker. The operator of the toy pushes a manual switch to activate the sound-producing unit thereby producing an audible sound. A muffler mounted near the speaker muffles the sound when the jaw members of the toy are closed and allows substantially all of the sound to emanate from the speaker when the jaw members are opened.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,447,461 to Liao discloses a sound generating hand puppet, which includes a glove worn by a player and a mouth-manipulating device secured in the head portion of the puppet glove. A sound generator mounted in the puppet is activated by operation of the mouth-manipulating device, which simulates opening the mouth of the puppet. This operation produces a sound imitating an animal or person's cry.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,394,874 to Kubo, et al., discloses a sound-generating finger puppet, which can be operated by a single hand. The figure includes a sound-producing unit within the puppet that is activated by pushing a button. The puppet does not include moving jaw members.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,471,192 to Dash discloses an animal figure, such as a cat, that includes a sensor and sound producing circuitry. When a user stimulates the sensor, by “petting” the figure, the output wave of an oscillating waveform may be controlled by the user. The resulting sound is an audible oscillating “rrrr” or purring sound. The characteristics of the continuous oscillating waveform do not change; only the amplitude of the sound changes. Dash does not disclose or suggest producing understandable speech in conjunction with animating parts of a toy figure.
All of the above devices provide the user with an enjoyable experience by combining a form of animation of the toy figure with sound, adding some aspect of realism to a game being played with the figure.
However, these prior art devices do not provide any form of synchronized verbal audio sequenced content with the animation of the toy or other novelty item. In the real world, when a user manipulates the mouth or jaw elements of the item, the mouth may be open for a very short duration or a long duration, or somewhere in between, depending on the whim of the user, or the type of game being played. Thus, to truly simulate the synchronization of physical animation with verbal sound, the sound producing unit of the item would have to be capable of responding to a variety of length of animation events, so that the beginning of the sound commences with the opening of the mouth or jaw elements of the figure, continues for the period of time that the mouth or jaw elements are open, and ends naturally as the mouth or jaw elements are closing, with the natural syllable tail end and sound decaying as does a natural speaking or singing voice when a speaker's or singer's mouth is closed.
Thus, there has long been a need for a sound producing novelty item that combines truly synchronized verbal audio and animation that provides the impression that the item is actually “speaking” or “singing” as each syllable of the verbal audio commences upon animating the item, continues for as long as the animation continues, and, most importantly, ends naturally.
None of the above patents, taken either singly or in combination, is seen to describe the present invention as disclosed and claimed.
Accordingly, it is an object of the invention to provide a novelty item or toy figure having movable members that produce verbal speech or singing as the members are moved to simulate that audio is emanating from the item's moving members.
Another object of the invention is to provide a novelty item or toy figure having movable members, which produces verbal speech or singing in complete synchronization as the item's members are opened, remain opened, and closed.
A further object of the invention is to provide a novelty item or toy figure having a head portion with movable members whereby animating the movable members, a prerecorded verbal syllable is actuated.
It is also an object of the invention to provide a novelty item or toy figure having a controllable vocal synchronization between each syllable's segments and animation when opening, holding open, and closing the mouth of the item, thereby actuating a visually correct vocal performance with total control of each syllable's segments and thereby the vocal performance tempo.
Yet another object of the invention is to provide a novelty item or toy figure having a mouth and a sound-producing unit that uses sustainable resynthesized looped vowels where all syllables are time length manually controllable by a player.
A further object of the invention is to provide a toy figure or novelty item having a mouth and a sound producing unit where the sequence of verbal audio events are actuated and controlled by opening and closing the item's mouth manually thus resulting in an animated sequence for each and every syllable pronounced in the speech or song within a prerecorded digital verbal audio file.
These and other objectives are achieved by the present invention, which, in a broad aspect, provides the user with a sound-producing apparatus for use in conjunction with a toy in the form of a puppet having hand-movable parts simulating animation to provide controllable vocal performances that are synchronized with the manually controlled animation of the puppet. The invention includes a switch configured so as to produce a signal when certain hand-movable parts are moved that actuates a sound-producing unit mounted within the toy. The sound-producing unit produces an audio event that, when applied to a speaker, produces sound controllable by hand movements and coordinated to the animation of the puppet.
In the preferred embodiment of the invention a switch is mounted in the toy figure's mouth. The switch activates a sound producing unit in the form of a sound chip on which are stored a number of audio events in the form of words that are composed of syllables. The syllables, in turn, normally, are composed of sub-syllabic units called onsets and rhymes. The rhymes may be further defined as having individual phonemes called the nucleus and coda, which are the smallest units of sound analysis. As these syllable segments are activated in sequence, they produce a recognizable word, phrase, poem, or song through a speaker mounted in the figure. Thus, each syllable is made up of three distinctive segments: 1) a beginning called the “onset” that is activated as the mouth of the figure opens; 2) a sustainable resynthesized looped nucleus, the central segment of the syllable, that continues for as long as the mouth is open; 3) and an end segment being either the coda, or in many cases, the natural end of the preceding nucleus, that is activated as the mouth closes and provides a natural ending of the syllable's rhyme.
A supply voltage control circuit produces the operating voltage for the electronic circuits used to implement the invention. The control circuit is structured to respond to the signal produced by the switch.
A principal advantage provided by the invention is found in the realism afforded a child's toy or other amusement device having movable parts to simulate vocalized animation. With the present invention, a player can produce recognizable verbal audio events that are truly synchronized with the movement of the toy or device.
Another advantage of the present invention is that the recognizable verbal audio events are synchronized with the movement of the mouth moving parts of the figure or device regardless of the time lapse of the movement of the mouth parts, i.e., realistic synchronization of the movement of the mouth parts and the vocal performance emanating from the figure whether the movement of the mouth parts is done rapidly or slowly, without adjusting any parts of the toy.
Further objects and advantages of this invention will become more apparent from the following description of the preferred embodiment, which, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, will illustrate, by way of example, the principles of the invention.
The foregoing and other objects, aspects and advantages will be better understood from the following detailed description of the preferred embodiments of the invention with reference to the drawings in which:
In the following description of the present invention, reference is made to the accompanying drawings, which form a part thereof, and in which are shown, by way of illustration, an exemplary embodiment illustrating the principles of the present invention and how it may be practiced. It is to be understood that other embodiments of the invention may be utilized to practice the present invention and structural and functional changes may be made thereto, without departing from the scope of the present invention.
A sound producing apparatus of the present invention is illustrated as a toy figure in
Toy 10 further includes sound producing unit 20, which is illustrated in
Each audio event is in the form of a word having one or more syllables. A syllable is defined as a unit of sound composed of a central peak of sonority (usually a vowel) and the consonants that surround the central peak.
A syllable may be further divided into sub-syllabic units called onsets and rhymes, the onset being the first (initial) segment of a syllable (usually a consonant) and the rhyme forming the core of the syllable. The rhyme may be further defined as consisting of a nucleus (the second segment of the syllable, usually a vowel), which is the central segment of a syllable, and the coda (usually a consonant), which is the third and closing segment of a syllable. Thus, most syllables may be defined as having three segments, the initial segment (onset), the central segment (nucleus) and a closing segment (coda). When a syllable has a vowel ending, the third segment becomes the natural tail-end of the nucleus.
As these three syllable segments or multiple syllable segments are activated in sequence, they produce a recognizable word, phrase, poem or song through speaker 28. When the player begins to manually animate toy 10 by moving mouth 15 jaw members 14 and 16, switch 18 send a signal to sound producing unit 20 to initiate a verbal audio event, which is stored in sound chip 22.
In one embodiment of the invention, as illustrated in
As the user continues to open and close jaw members 14 and 16, a sequence of syllables is heard, and familiar words in the form of songs, poems or phrases are “verbalized” by toy 10. A sequence of verbal audio events for the phrase “Mary had a little lamb” is illustrated in the example below and also in
[mouth opens]Meh/eheheh/rrr[mouth closed]-[mouth opens]Ree/eeeee/Eh [mouth closed]-[mouth opens]Ha/ahahah/D[mouth closed]-[mouth opens]Ah/ahahah/H[mouth closed]-[mouth opens]Le/eee/H[mouth closed]-[mouth opens]Tah/ahahah/L[mouth closed]-[mouth opens]La/ahahah/M[mouth closed]
By storing a number of different sequences of audio events in memory 24, a user can enjoy a wide variety of experiences by animating toy 10. Program selection switch 32, which is mounted to head 12, enables the user to select which sequence of verbal audio events he or she would like to hear. In one aspect of the invention, there may be stored several different sequences of the same song in different keys, and/or in second or third-part harmony, allowing the user to change the pitch (the sample playback rate) of each individual syllable sample chromatically or harmonically, rather than recording multiple digital audio versions of the same song in memory 24. Thus, the user can use program selection switch 32 to select the key in which the song is sung, and may also select an optional sequence for second or third part harmony of the same song. Alternatively, chromatic pitch-shifting switch 50 may be added to the sound producing unit 20, to select these options.
One of the advantages of the invention is that the toy can take on a variety of voices. The voices can be animal, fantasy, or human, male or female, young or old, and could also have accents or other characteristics.
Toy 10 also provides great versatility, in that country specific verbal audio events can be stored in memory 24, such as audio events in the Japanese language for use of the invention in Japan, or audio events in the Spanish language for use in many Latin American countries.
In another embodiment of the invention, sound-producing unit 20 includes a sound chip with multiple polyphony, thereby enabling the use of a musical instrumental sequenced performance (i.e., strummed guitar chords, sustained piano chords, or sustained organ chords) synchronized with each audio event. Each chord could be sustained through multiple syllables until the next chord change. The instrumental performances can be generated from a General MIDI PCM or FM sound-bank/digital-audio-engine.
If one or more users has toy 10 on one or both hands, the toys could be used to sing together either in unison or in multiple part harmony, providing yet another entertaining experience for the user(s).
Memory 24 could be manufactured so that it can be removed as a package from the toy 10 and replaced with a new memory that would contain prerecorded audio events that are different from those stored on the removed unit. This way, a user would always be able to have new audio events and would not easily get tired of using the toy.
The types of prerecorded verbal audio events that in sequence produce verbal performances are almost unlimited. I envision prerecorded performances such as vocal effects, educational songs, nursery rhymes, holiday songs, popular songs, animal voices, spoken words, prayers, poems, or robotic speech, among others.
In another embodiment of the invention, a novelty item such as a greeting card could be configured to synchronize verbal audio events in a sound-producing unit mounted to the card. The front and back parts of the greeting card function in the same manner as do the movable jaw members of the toy. As a person begins to open the card, a switch activates the sound producing, which initiates a verbal audio event, which can be sustained while the card is opened and smoothly ends with a natural decay as the parts of the card are closed together.
The foregoing description of exemplary embodiments of the present invention have been presented for purposes of enablement, illustration, and description. It is not intended to be exhaustive of or to limit the present invention to the precise form discussed. There are, however, other configurations for sound producing toys not specifically described herein, but with which the present invention is applicable. The present invention should therefore not be seen as limited to the particular embodiments described herein; rather, it should be understood that the present invention has wide applicability with respect to sound producing toys. Such other configurations can be achieved by those skilled in the art in view of the description herein. Accordingly, the scope of the invention is defined by the following claims.
This application is a continuation-in-part application of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/675,030, filed Sep. 30, 2003 now abandoned.
Number | Name | Date | Kind |
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3092927 | Luchsinger | Jun 1963 | A |
4206448 | Davis | Jun 1980 | A |
4221927 | Dankman et al. | Sep 1980 | A |
4290053 | Nemoto | Sep 1981 | A |
4314423 | Lipsitz et al. | Feb 1982 | A |
4551114 | Hyman et al. | Nov 1985 | A |
4687457 | Milner | Aug 1987 | A |
5130693 | Gigandet | Jul 1992 | A |
5447461 | Liao | Sep 1995 | A |
5463369 | Lamping | Oct 1995 | A |
5471192 | Dash | Nov 1995 | A |
5633985 | Severson et al. | May 1997 | A |
5944533 | Wood | Aug 1999 | A |
6394874 | Kubo et al. | May 2002 | B1 |
Number | Date | Country | |
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Parent | 10675030 | Sep 2003 | US |
Child | 10914839 | US |