Patent Application
20050186881
The present invention is directed to toys, and in particular toys that simulate power tools.
Toys generally are meant to be entertaining and to provide a practical way for children to role play at adult activities. Toy tools, for example, allow children to play at adult construction activities while also providing an opportunity for children to learn the proper manner in which to handle or use various tools and to learn which tools are appropriate for a particular job.
Children typically have a shorter attention span than adults, however, and more realistic toys are more likely to capture and maintain a child's attention and interest. One way to make toy tools seem more realistic is to have them make noise when they are used: particularly a noise that is similar to the sound of an adult tool. Another way to keep a child's attention is to have moving parts to catch a child's eye. For example, a known push toy has a housing and a handle that generally resemble an adult lawnmower. A chamber in the housing contains a plurality of colored balls that are visible through a transparent wall. When the toy is pushed along the ground, a ratchet winds and suddenly releases a plate in the bottom of the chamber, causing the balls to pop into the air. Although perhaps entertaining, adult lawnmowers lack such balls and “popping” mechanisms, making such a toy unrealistic and thus unlikely to hold a child's attention once the novelty has worn off.
In another attempt to create a more realistic toy, U.S. Pat. No. 4,295,294 discloses a push toy with a housing in the shape of a power lawnmower body and a separate housing in the shape of a grass catcher. The grass catcher has a plurality of green plastic strips, simulating grass clippings, that are agitated by a rotating brush in the grass catcher when the toy is pushed along the ground. The rotating brush creates a cloud-like particulate suspension that is visible through a transparent portion of the grass catcher to simulate the view inside an operating adult grass catcher. Unlike an adult lawnmower, however, which uses a cutting blade that rotates about a generally vertical axis to cut grass and blow or throw the grass into the grass catcher, this toy lawnmower uses a brush that rotates about a horizontal axis within the grass catcher.
In addition, both of these toys have to be pushed in order to “pop” the balls or to agitate the simulated grass clippings. If these toys are not moving along the ground, neither toy lawn mower provides any motion that could provide a realistic simulation of an adult lawn mower. While amusing, such toys are far from realistic versions of adult power tools.
Unlike prior toy power tools, the present invention presents a toy power tool with a more realistic appearance, with moving parts that resemble corresponding moving parts of an adult power tool, as well as realistic looking “sawdust” particles that are agitated by the aforementioned movable parts of the toy power tool. Unlike an “adult” power tool, however, a toy power tool cannot actually cut and thereby create its own waste particles.
The present invention provides a toy power tool that simulates a cutting or other material removal action of an adult (non-play) power tool. The toy has a housing with a shape that resembles the shape of an adult power tool, such as a circular saw, jigsaw, bandsaw, table saw, drill, router, sander, grinder, shaper, lathe, power plane, planer, mill, jointer or other power tool that generates waste particulates in use. The toy has a chamber with a plurality of particles that represent the shavings, sawdust or other waste generated by that tool. At least one wall of the chamber is transparent or translucent. A part of the toy within the chamber is movable to agitate the waste particles. When the moving parts of the tool are set in motion, the simulated particles are agitated to simulate the appearance of an actual working power tool. Unlike the push toy lawnmower described above, the motion of the particles in the chamber typically is independent of the motion of the tool. Moreover, the present invention makes use of moving components of the toy power tool that would be found on an adult tool to agitate the waste particles, thereby providing more realism to hold a child's attention for a longer period of time.
More particularly, an exemplary toy power tool includes a housing having a chamber that contains a plurality of particles having the appearance of particles typically produced by operation of an adult power tool of the same type as the toy power tool. A moving portion of the power tool within the chamber, such as a drill bit or a saw blade, acts as an agitator to agitate the particles to simulate, for example, swirling sawdust. A wall of the chamber is at least partially transparent so that the agitated particles are visible while the moving portion of the tool is moving.
The present invention also provides a method of simulating operation of an adult power tool in a toy power tool, that includes the following steps: agitating a plurality of particles contained within a chamber having a wall that is at least partially transparent, the particles having the appearance of particles typically produced by the operation of an adult power tool of the same type to simulate operation of a power tool, independently of movement of the chamber.
Another embodiment provided by the present invention is a toy table saw having a tabletop surface and a saw assembly. The saw assembly includes a housing with a chamber that contains a plurality of particles having the appearance of particles typically produced by operation of an adult table saw of the same type as the toy table saw. At least a portion of the chamber is transparent or translucent. A simulated saw blade is rotatably mounted to extend into the chamber for agitating the particles within the chamber and thus to simulate operation of an adult table saw. The saw assembly is mounted such that the simulated saw blade extends above the tabletop surface.
The chamber can have an enlarged portion that resembles a blade guard that extends over a distal end of the simulated saw blade, and can be spaced from the tabletop surface.
The present invention also provides such a toy table saw in combination with a workpiece that represents a piece of wood to be cut. The workpiece has two parts connected along a cut line and means for releasably securing the parts together, such as magnets. The table saw also can include a drive wheel that extends above the tabletop surface adjacent the chamber that is connected to the simulated saw blade by a linkage, such as a gear train, so that moving the workpiece over the drive wheel causes the simulated saw blade to rotate, agitating the simulated sawdust particles and providing a very realistic operation of the toy table saw.
A method of using such a toy table saw can include the following steps: (a) a simulated saw blade moving a workpiece having two parts detachably connected along a cut line toward a simulated saw blade as though to engage the saw blade; (b) separating the workpiece into its two parts along the cut line to simulate cutting the workpiece with the simulated saw blade; and (c) agitating the particles within the blade guard chamber to simulate sawdust from a cutting operation of the simulated saw blade.
The foregoing and other features of the invention are hereinafter fully described and particularly pointed out in the claims, the following description and annexed drawings setting forth in detail a certain illustrative embodiment of the invention, this embodiment being indicative, however, of but one of the various ways in which the principles of the invention may be employed.
The present invention provides a toy power tool that simulates the action of an adult power tool of the same type, and in particular, simulates the creation of sawdust or other waste particles in the form of shavings, filings, etc., generated by a cutting or other material removal action of the tool, independent of movement of the tool.
An exemplary toy power tool is shown in
Mounted in the housing 12 for rotation therein is a simulated circular saw blade 22 that rotates when the power tool 10 is activated, for example by pulling on a trigger switch 24 such as that shown on a handle portion 26 of the illustrated toy circular saw to activate a battery-powered electric motor (not shown) which also is enclosed in the housing. The saw blade 22 resembles the saw blade for an adult circular saw and is movable relative to the chamber 14. The saw blade 22 is generally circular with a wave-like periphery that includes portions 28 that resemble the teeth of a saw blade for an adult circular saw. These teeth 28 in fact have sufficient width to engage the particles 20 in the chamber 14 as the blade 22 rotates, thereby agitating the particles within the chamber to simulate the production of sawdust; sawdust which, incidentally, is created by the teeth of an adult circular saw blade as the teeth cut into wood, for example. The teeth 28 may be wider than other portions of the saw blade 22 to move the sawdust about the chamber 14 (as shown in
The toy circular saw 10 thus includes means for agitating the particles 20 within the chamber 14 to simulate operation of an adult saw. Rotation of the saw blade 22 itself, with its peripheral teeth, acts as an agitator to effect a swirling action of the particles 20 within the chamber 14 thereby giving the appearance that the circular saw is generating sawdust from cutting a piece of wood, for example. Other means for agitating the particles can be used as well, including blowing, striking and vibrating the particles in various ways alone or in combination. As yet another alternative, a magnet may be used to agitate magnetizable particles, such as iron filings.
Another embodiment of the invention is shown in
The saw assembly 54 is mounted with respect to the table top surface 52 such that the simulated saw blade 64 extends above the table top surface. Note that the simulated saw blade 64 rotates about an axis that is approximately parallel to the table top surface 52 and therefore the saw blade 64 extends above the table top surface 52 in a direction that is substantially perpendicular to the table top surface 52. The illustrated table top surface 52 has a guide track 66, and a miter gauge 68 is shown resting in the guide track 66 for pushing a workpiece 70 across the table top surface 52 and past the simulated saw blade 64. The illustrated workpiece 70 has two detachable pieces or parts 72, 74 joined together along a cut line 76, using hook-and-loop fasteners or magnets for example, that can be used to pretend that the workpiece 70 is being cut into two pieces.
As shown in
The saw assembly 54 also includes a motion generator, for manually driving the simulated saw blade 64. In the illustrated embodiment, the motion generator includes a roller 82 that protrudes from the insert surface 80 of the saw assembly 54 near the chamber 60. While the circular saw 10 shown in
The chamber 60 within which the saw blade 64 is rotatably mounted, also includes another feature not found in the toy circular saw shown in
As shown in
To summarize, the present invention provides a toy power tool that simulates the action of sawdust or other shavings generated by action of an adult power tool. The toy has a housing with a shape that resembles the shape of an adult power tool, such as a circular saw, and a chamber, which preferably has a wall that is transparent or translucent, with a plurality of particles contained within the chamber that represent the sawdust. The toy has a movable element that corresponds to an element of an actual adult power tool that moves when the tool is operating. When the tool is activated to drive the movable element of the toy, the element moves, rotating or translatably oscillating, for example, and thereby agitates the simulated particles to simulate the operation of an adult power tool.
Naturally, the housing and simulated cutting means of the toy power tool provided by the present invention can have other shapes to provide a more realistic play experience, but it also should be clear that the toy power tool does not have to move in order to simulate operation of a corresponding adult tool.
The toy power tool provided by the present invention also can include with a noisemaker or a vibration generator to provide a more realistic sound and feel to the toy power tool to better simulate an adult tool. Although the invention has been shown and described with respect to certain illustrated embodiments, equivalent alterations and modifications will occur to others skilled in the art upon reading and understanding the specification and the annexed drawings. In particular regard to the various functions performed by the above described integers (components, assemblies, devices, compositions, etc.), the terms (including a reference to a “means”) used to describe such integers are intended to correspond, unless otherwise indicated, to any integer which performs the specified function (i.e., that is functionally equivalent), even though not structurally equivalent to the disclosed structure which performs the function in the herein illustrated embodiments of the invention. In addition, while a particular feature of the invention may have been described above with respect to only one of several illustrated embodiments, such a feature may be combined with one or more other features of the other embodiment, as maybe desired and advantageous for any given or particular application.
