Patent Application
20080254708
1. Field of Invention
This invention relates generally to toy vehicles and, more particularly, to modularity of toy vehicles.
2. Background Art
Radio-controlled (RC) cars as well as other toy cars, have been very popular with children of various ages over the years. However, a disadvantage of many toy cars is that generally speaking they are fixed in design and cannot be changed. This means that a child can often become bored with them after a period of time. Furthermore, many children express satisfaction with being able to build or work on a toy themselves. Yet, many radio-controlled cars and other toy cars have a complex construction and have components which are complicated and not easily adapted to be built or switched out by children. What is needed is a toy vehicle having universally and easily interchangeable components such that a child may be able to build or customize their own toys.
Attempts have been made to design toy vehicles with interchangeable components, however, the interchangeable modules for a given vehicle design can each have a distinctly different attachment mechanisms. For example, for a given vehicle, there can be multiple types of attachment mechanisms for the front bumper area of the vehicle and a totally different set of attachment mechanisms for the sides and rear of the vehicle. A more simple design is needed for attachments and accessories where the attachment mechanisms are more universal and easy for children of all ages to install.
Attempts have been made to develop less complex designs and with more universal attachment mechanisms, however, the designs are quite convoluted in that a child can place any accessory at any location on the toy vehicle, even at locations where the accessory is not intended to be installed. A design is needed where the attachment mechanisms are universal, but the design is such that accessories can only be installed at their intended locations. Further, many attempts to develop a design that addresses this need has resulted in a design with a less than appealing appearance having unsightly holes or contact points at locations that take away from the appearance of the vehicle, particularly when an accessory is not installed. This is particularly important when the owner of the toy vehicle is concerned about whether the appearance of the vehicle closely mimics the appearance of a full size vehicle. Unsightly holes or contact points all over the vehicle negates the attempt to mimic the appearance of a full size vehicle.
Further, the attempts to develop a design having interchangeable accessories and attachments have not provided mechanisms for supplying power to accessories, such as for example, providing power to accessories having LED lights and/or sound emitting devices. There are various toy vehicle designs that exist that include light emitting and/or sound emitting devices, however, these devices are not interchangeable accessories.
The invention is a modular toy vehicle system having a plurality of accessory attach mechanisms whereby any number of toy vehicle accessories can be attached on, removed from and replaced on various areas of the vehicle with no visible means of attachment to detract from the appearance of the vehicle once the accessories is installed. The toy retail business model typically does not require that a large number of after-market customizing accessories be sold for the variety of vehicles—vehicles of different sizes and genres. One challenge is that accessories have not been developed that can attach to the front, top, side, bottom and rear of toy vehicles and a more standardized universal method (or methods) of attachment has not been developed that would allow for the attachment of all these various accessories to all these vehicles without compromising the aesthetic integrity of the vehicle's design and form. Toy vehicles, such as for example radio controlled (RC) vehicles, have not been designed with the proper universal docking mechanisms or receptacles that would allow various different accessories having the mating universal mechanism to attach to the vehicle.
A typical toy vehicle design includes a body and a chassis. Though not necessary, the body can substantially lower the rear, top, left and right portions of the chassis. Depending on the type of accessory desired, it may be more desirable to attach the accessory to the chassis or it may be more desirable to attach it to the body. Therefore, there can be multiple types of universal docking mechanisms integrated into the toy vehicle where each of the universal docking types are designed based on the general category or type of docking location (for example under chassis docking) and to accommodate an anticipated accessory type for a given docking location (for example front, side, or rear).
The present invention is a toy vehicle design having two distinctly different universal methods to attach accessories. Accessories that attach to the front, sides, or rear and near the bottom of the vehicle can connect to the chassis via a tab and slot system. Strategically positioned slots on the chassis undercarriage extending or protruding from an underside surface of the chassis can accept tabs that extend from those accessories. The tabs of the accessories can simply laterally “plug in” to the slots on the chassis. The slots can be positioned adjacent the rear end, front end, left side and/or right side. The various accessories can be interchangeable and can be easily attached and removed without the need for tools. For front, side, rear and bottom fitting accessories, slots can be located along the outer perimeter of the vehicle chassis' undercarriage. The tabs can extend from the various accessories. The slots shown in the drawing are stirrup-like slots with an open ended through-hole or eyelet. However the slots can take on other embodiments without departing from the scope of the invention, such as for example, elongated slots open on both ends or close on one end.
The slots can be made of a durable resilient plastic. The slot can essentially be plastic loops with a center eyelet through which the tab of the accessory can be inserted. The loop can be pliable enough allowing a tab of an accessory to pass there through, but resilient enough to maintain its form for securely holding the accessory in place. The tabs can be made of a similar plastic and can have two parallel prongs with a lengthwise uniform gap there between for inserting into the slot. When the prongs of the tabs can be laterally inserted or press fitted through the slots, the prongs will be urged to bend inwardly, one toward the other, due to the dimension of the opening of the slot. The resiliency of the prongs will cause the prongs to apply an outward force against the inside of the slot thereby holding the accessory securely in place. The tabs could include detents or cut outs for receiving the slots and locking the accessory in place.
For accessories that attach to the hood, roof and truck beds, magnets can be built into the underside of the vehicle body or embedded in the body beneath the surface of the body with magnets of the opposite polarity attached to the inside of the accessories. The result is an invisible connection. The accessory and body can be formed of plastic. The magnets can be formed inside the plastic just beneath the outer surface. The magnets can have sufficient strength to attract each other through the thin layers of plastic.
For electronic accessories, the present invention can utilize female electrical chassis connectors that can be located along the sides of the chassis undercarriage to accept male electrical accessory connectors attached to accessories. This allows the accessory to be powered by the vehicle's internal power source. The female connectors can be electrically connected to the battery power source of the toy vehicle.
The drawing shows an example of a powered accessory, which in this case is an under carriage light. The accessory is shown having a tab which has two prongs. The prongs of the tab can be laterally inserted into the slots. This accessory can have a male electrical contact for inserting into the female receptacle to establish a power connection for the accessory.
The type of magnetic accessories that could be attached include magnetized hood scoops, magnetized emergency lights, side pipes, under carriage lighting and various other accessory items. Please refer to the drawing and detailed description for further details relating to this invention.
These and other advantageous features of the present invention will be in part apparent and in part pointed out herein below.
For a better understanding of the present invention, reference may be made to the accompanying drawings in which:
While the invention is susceptible to various modifications and alternative forms, specific embodiments thereof are shown by way of example in the drawings and will herein be described in detail. It should be understood, however, that the drawings and detailed description presented herein are not intended to limit the invention to the particular embodiment disclosed, but on the contrary, the intention is to cover all modifications, equivalents, and alternatives falling within the spirit and scope of the present invention as defined by the appended claims.
According to the embodiment(s) of the present invention, various views are illustrated in
One embodiment of the present invention is a customizable toy comprising a toy vehicle having magnetic body mounts and bottom chassis mounts with an electrical connection, which teaches a novel apparatus and method for a toy vehicle having interchangeable universally mountable accessories.
The details of the invention and various embodiments can be better understood by referring to the figures of the drawing. Referring to
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The various examples shown above illustrate a novel method and apparatus for providing a universal docketing mechanism for accessories of toy vehicles. A user of the present invention may choose any of the above accessory system embodiments, or an equivalent thereof, depending upon the desired application. In this regard, it is recognized that various forms of the subject toy vehicle accessory mounts could be utilized without departing from the spirit and scope of the present invention.
As is evident from the foregoing description, certain aspects of the present invention are not limited by the particular details of the examples illustrated herein, and it is therefore contemplated that other modifications and applications, or equivalents thereof, will occur to those skilled in the art. It is accordingly intended that the claims shall cover all such modifications and applications that do not depart from the spirit and scope of the present invention.
Other aspects, objects and advantages of the present invention can be obtained study of the drawings, the disclosure and the appended claims.
