Background Art In general, children have made picture cards for a kind of game called 'playing with picture cards'out of thick, hard, and used paper by folding. In the game using such picture cards, a person who turns over the other person's picture card by hitting its sides or top with his own picture card becomes winner.

Playing with picture cards is a medium for building up a close relationship among themselves while several children take part in the games at the same time. Besides, the games are effective to improve children's activeness. At this time, children tend to use only one hand, a mainly using one while actively concentrating on the games. In other words, the main hand is used with greater force and in a greater frequency than the other hand, so that such an unbalanced use of one hand has been known to be a source of causing disharmony in the growth of children's body up to now.

In addition, computers or mass media like TV sets widely supplied in modern days have made children enjoy playing games by themselves. In such social environments, a number of children have lost opportunities of building close relationship among friends or of doing active physical exercises. For this reason, children's unbalanced body growth has been caused. Such social environments hinder children's mental and physical growth.

Disclosure of The Invention Therefore, in order for children to be away from the playing-alone culture of the modern times, it is necessary to develop or turn to a new culture of playing together with others in a variety of games with consistent excitement. In order to build up such a new culture of playing together with others, we need another factor of stimulating a well-balanced growth in designing joyful games but exclude the excessive use of only one hand like in the playing with the picture card described briefly above.

It is an object of the present invention to solve the aforementioned problems and to provide a picture card with which several people irrespective of age can enjoy playing games with consistent excitement through active participation in either narrow or wide space in order to prevent children from playing alone.

Furthermore, it is another object of the present invention to provide a picture card that can make children experience its elasticity in the course of fun games and improve senses of vision and touch in accordance with its various elastic transformations.

Brief Description of the Drawings Fig. 1 is a perspective view schematically illustrating an elastic picture card and its elastically transformed state according to an embodiment of the present invention.

Fig. 2 is a perspective view illustrating an example of playing with the elastic picture card shown in Fig. 1.

Figs. 3a and 3b are perspective views illustrating other examples of playing with the elastic picture card shown in Fig. 1.

Figs. 4 through 6 are perspective views illustrating other examples of playing with the elastic picture card shown in Fig. 1.

Fig. 7 is an extended view illustrating an example of a coversheet that covers the surface of the elastic picture card shown in Fig. 1.

Fig. 8a is a cross-sectional view on the basis of line a-a of Fig. 1 illustrating the curve of the elastic picture card.

Fig. 8b is a cross-sectional view on the basis of line b-b of Fig. 1 illustrating the curve of the elastic picture card.

Reference Numeral 10: elastic picture card 12: top surface 14: bottom surface 16: coversheet Best Mode for Carrying out the Invention Hereinafter, elastic picture cards according to preferred embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings.

Fig. 1 is a perspective view schematically illustrating an elastic picture card and its elastically transformed state according to an embodiment of the present invention. Figs. 2 through 6 are perspective views illustrating other examples of playing with the elastic picture card shown in Fig. 1. Fig. 7 is an extended view illustrating an example of a coversheet that covers the surface of the elastic picture card shown in Fig. 1. Fig. 8a and Fig. 8b are cross-sectional views illustrating the curve of the elastic picture card.

As shown in Fig. 1, the elastic picture card 10 relating to an embodiment of the present invention is made of a rectangular metal plate member having elastic recovery, and elastic force is separately applied to the direction of length and width of the plate member.

At this time, the elastic force applied to the direction of length of the plate member operates on both ends of the plate member in length so that they can be curved upward and approach each other. Due to the effect of such an applied elasticity, the top surface of the plate member, which is continued between both ends of the plate member in length, is formed in an upwardly curved arc.

Also, the elastic force applied to the direction of width of the plate member operates on both ends of the plate member in width so that they can be curved downward and approach each other. Due to the effect of such an elastic force, the bottom surface of the plate member, which is continued between both ends of the plate member in width, is formed in a downwardly curved arc.

On the other hand, in case the metal plate member is turned over, the width ends of the plate member can be curved upward by the elastic force applied to the direction of width of the plate member and the length ends of the plate member can be curved downward by the elastic force applied to the direction of length of the plate member.

Therefore, as described above, respective elastic forces applied to the direction of length and width of the plate member make both ends in length and width bent in opposite directions.

Such a plate member to which the elastic forces are applied is formed in a downwardly or upwardly bent shape. When physical force F is applied against the elastic forces of maintaining the original shape of a plate member, the plate member changes its shape elastically by the elastic force operating in the opposite direction.

The arcs formed by the elastic effect of the plate member are different from each other due to the directions of length and width. At this time, the elastic recovery and strength of the plate member should be taken into consideration.

As shown in Fig. 8a, with respect to the elastic force applied to the direction of width of the plate member, the angle between horizontal axis and the tangent lines of the downwardly curved arc is within the range of 2 to 70 degrees when any physical force is not applied. It is preferable that the angle remains within the range of 5 to 30 degrees.

On the other hand, as shown in Fig. 8b, with respect to the elastic force applied to the direction of length of the plate member, the angle between horizontal axis and the tangent lines of the ends of the upwardly curved arc is within the range of 10 to 90 degrees when any physical force is not applied. It is preferable that the angle remains within the range of 20 to 70 degrees.

A portion of the plate member having elasticity can be made by pressing it with a suppressing roller in the direction of both length and width. Also, the plate member can have elasticity by transforming both long sides of the plate member, which are the ends of the plate member in width, to be curved upward and by transforming both short sides of the plate member, which are the ends of the plate member in length, to be curved downward.

On the other hand, it is preferable that the entire surfaces of the plate member, as shown in Fig. 7, is covered by a flexible material of a cover sheet 16 designed with a variety of colors and patterns. The top and bottom surfaces of the aforementioned plate member can be formed in uneven shapes or predetermined shapes.

A method of playing with the elastic picture card 10 described above is shown in Fig. 2. In this method, several children put out one or more elastic picture cards 10 and pile a plurality of elastic picture cards 10 at their bent shapes; a child having a prior right hits down one side of the elastic picture cards 10; children compare the state of elastic picture cards 10 flipped over or with their top surfaces directed upward; and that the child having a prior right chooses one out of those elastic picture cards 10 or scores points. While playing the

game, children not only understand the instability of arc-shaped stuffs but also observe and grasp visually the motion of the elastic picture cards 10 by physical force.

Another game that can be played with the aforementioned elastic picture cards is illustrated as an instance in Figs. 3a, 3b and 4. Firstly, one elastic picture card 10 bent downward is placed on the floor as a supporter. Then, one or more elastic picture cards 10 are put on the first elastic picture card 10 playing a role as a supporter. A predetermined portion of the top surface of the elastic picture card 10 placed as a supporter is pressed by a finger, thereby impose elastic changes of being bent or transformed upward to the elastic picture cards 10. At this time, the other elastic picture card 10 piled on the elastic picture card functioning as a supporter are ejected high, flown away and flipped over or flown far, which may be adopted as a judgmental standard of determining who wins or loses the game. As a result, children can study elastic effects of a flexible thing with a sense of vision and a sense of touch.

According to the game illustrated in Fig. 5, both longitudinal ends of the upwardly bent elastic picture card 10 are supported by a thumb or another finger. Then, an elastic change is induced with a level of force applied both ends. When the supporting force is released at one of the two ends, the elastic picture card 10 is ejected and flown far, which may be adopted as a judgmental standard of determining who wins or loses the game. During playing the aforementioned game, children can also study elastic effects of a flexible thing with a sense of vision and a sense of touch.

In addition to the games described above, another game that can be played with the elastic picture card 10 is shown in Fig. 6. The downwardly bent elastic picture card 10 is placed between index finger and middle finger, and it spins and flies far by using a wrist and fingers on the condition of parallel position. The elastic picture card 10 flown as such has centrifugal force due to

rotation and dynamic lift including a negative pressure acting on the top surface and a positive pressure acting on the bottom surface due to a difference between the air-flowing speed on the top surface having a large curve and the air-flowing speed on the bottom surface having a small curve. Therefore, children can understand and experience the effect of the dynamic lift in the game, and have fun flying the elastic picture cards and competing to fly them far each other.

On the other hand, if the coversheet 16 of the aforementioned elastic picture cards 10 can be printed with favorable characters greatly appealing to children, so as to easily generate children's fun and excitement along with positive effects of advertisements. Besides, if pictures of words, animals, plants or the like are printed on the coversheet 16, children may be provided with opportunities of collecting the elastic picture cards and obtaining knowledge through pictures of coversheets at the same time.

Industrial Applicability According to the invention, there are advantages of stimulating children's interest on elasticity and enabling children to understand elastic changes in the games of playing with an elastic picture card because the elastic picture card is made of a rectangular plate member having two different elastic forces of being bent or transformed in the direction of length and width of the plate member, and because when an outside force against an elastic force is applied to the elastic picture card, it tends to be elastically bent or transformed by the other elastic force operating in the opposite direction. In addition, there are other advantages of enabling children to understand senses of vision and touch through a variety of games by using the elastic effects of one or more elastic picture cards such as flipping over, ejecting out, flying away and flying high within a predetermined range of angles forming the arc, and enabling people young or old to improve mutual relationships through fun gatherings and to enjoy active games without a limitation to the size of space.