BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

This invention relates generally to toys and more particularly to writing toys for generating sounds as the user writes/draws upon the toy.

Various types of toys having sound generating means are available commercially. For example, United States Patent No. 3,429,216 to Lawrence discloses an educational electronic music-note indicating device to teach students the music notation. This device has two layers, each of which contain conductive portions, separated by a deformable electrical insulator. Contact on the top surface brings the two surfaces together to close the circuit, which results in generating a sound and/or illuminating a bulb of an appropriate note.

United States Patent No. 3,562,394 to Kiepe discloses an electrical musical device with controls and tones resembling an electric organ. This device also has two layers, each of which contain conductive material, which are brought into contact by finger pressure upon the top surface to produce a sound.

United States Patent No. 3,592,098 to Zadig discloses a device for producing selected tones. This device includes an electrically operated tone generator having a stylus and a plurality of terminals for producing tones by completing a circuit through the stylus and one of the terminals that will cause the desired tone to be produced.

United States Patent No. 3,754,495 to Honegger discloses an electronic sounding note board for music instruction. This device has conductor bars arranged below the board surface with each conductor bar being coupled to a separate sound generator. The device operates by a person touching the board surface above a particular bar which actuates a particular

sound generator.

United States Patent No. 3,800,437 to Lamberson discloses an educational electronic device which provides a positive response, such as a sound signal, in response to a student choosing the correct answer.

United States Patent No. 3,956,958 to Nash et al. also discloses a device for producing a signal in response to a movement on the top surface of the device using pressure- sensitive switches beneath the top surface.

United States Patent No. 4,245,539 to Jones discloses a musical platform having sensor means and electronic circuit means to produce varying volume and pitch in response to varying the magnitude and distribution of body weight on the platform.

United States Patent No. 4,276,538 to Eventoff et al. discloses a touch switch keyboard apparatus which also has two layers, each having conductive portions, which are brought into contact with each other in response to a touch force. This type of device can be used for keyboards of musical instruments.

United States Patent No. 4,706,536 to Sanders discloses an electrical membrane switch keyboard for inclusion within an electronic tone generator of the type suitable to be included inside a songbook. The electrical membrane switch keyboard is formed from two layers, each of which contain conductive material, separated from each other until depressed by the finger, which actuates the sound.

United States Patent No. 5,247,131 to Okamoto et al. discloses an electronic musical instrument for generating sounds of the rubbed string instrument and the wind instrument by movement of a hand manipulator in a manipulation region. The sound generated is a function of the positioning of the

hand manipulator and the pressure applied by the hand manipulator in the manipulation region.

United States Patent Nos. 5,167,508 to c Taggarts, 5,209,665 to Billings et al. and 5,290,190 to McClanahan all disclose electronic music books.

One example of a commercially available musical coloring toy is Color Tunes™ by Crayola. The Color Tunes™ toy comprises a drawing surface for the child to color on, which causes a sound to emanate from an associated speaker dependent on, inter alia- the rate of movement of the drawing implement. The drawing surface consists of pre-drawn cards which not only provide the coloring surface, but also select a particular musical tune to be played. If such a card is destroyed or lost, the child cannot color on that particular pre-drawn card and cannot select that particular musical tune. In addition, the child is limited to only coloring as opposed to drawing free hand on the drawing surface; in other words, the child cannot insert blank sheet of paper in place of the card and still produce sound output. For these reasons and others, the Color Tunes™ is limited in use.

As a result, there is a need for a sound generating writing toy where the child activates the sound selection means and different types of writings/drawings are displayed.

Accordingly, it is the general object of this invention to provide a toy which meets the above mentioned needs.

It is a further object of this invention to provide a toy that generates a sound as the user applies pressure on the writing surface of the toy, and alters the pitch quality of the sound based on the user's movement.

It is yet a further object of this invention to provide a

sound generating toy wherein the sound generated by applying pressure on the writing surface, not only varies in pitch, but also varies in direct proportion to the speed at which pressure is applied to the writing surface.

It is another object of this invention to provide a sound generating writing toy adaptable to a plurality of writing surfaces.

It is still another object of this invention to provide a sound generating writing toy having a storage area for the storage of, and removal of, writing surfaces.

It is still yet another object of this invention to provide a toy that is simple and durable in construction.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

A sound generating toy, for use by a person, which has an upper casing and a lower casing. The upper casing has a sound selection means and an opening for receiving a writing assembly. The lower casing contains an electrical switching means and an electrically operative sound generating means. The writing assembly has a top surface adapted to be depressed upon by the person during writing/drawing. Located underneath the writing assembly is the electrical switching means, which is responsive to pressure applied by the person in any direction across the writing assembly, thereby defining a movement having a corresponding rate. Such movement activates the electrical switching means, which provides an electrical signal to the sound generating means. As a result, the sound generating means produces an audible sound as a function of the movement of the pressure applied across the top surface of the writing assembly. The audible sound has a pitch quality that is responsive to pressure applied by the person on the writing assembly in at least one direction across the top surface of the writing assembly. In addition, the audible sound has a rate quality that is directly responsive to the

pressure applied by the person in any direction across the top surface of the writing assembly.

DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

Other objects and many of the attendant advantages of this invention will be readily appreciated when the same becomes better understood by reference to the following detailed description, when considered in connection with the accompanying drawings wherein:

Fig. 1 is a plan view of the sound generating writing toy;

Fig. 2 is an exploded view of the sound generating writing toy;

Fig. 3 is an exploded view of the electrical switching means;

Fig. 4 is a sectional view taken along the line 4-4 of Fig. 3;

Fig. 5 is a schematic diagram illustrating the electronic sound generator and associated circuitry;

Fig. 6 is a functional block diagram illustrating the Texas Instrument Speech Chip TSP50C06;

Fig. 7 is a system block diagram illustrating a portion of the software embedded in the Texas Instrument Speech Chip TSP50C06;

Fig. 8 is a flow chart illustrating the Texas Instrument Speech Chip TSP50C06; and

Fig. 9 is an enlarged view of the area circled in Fig. 5

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS

Referring now in greater detail to the various figures of the drawing wherein like reference characters refer to like parts, there is shown in Figs. 1-2, a sound generating toy constructed in accordance with the teachings of this invention.

As shown in Fig. 2, a battery operated sound generating toy 20 comprises an upper casing 22 and a lower casing 24. The upper casing 22 has an opening 26, for receiving a writing assembly 28 (as will be described later) , sound selection buttons 30A-30H (as will be described later) , openings 32 for an audible sound to emanate from, an ON/OFF switch 34, a cord 36 connecting a stylus 38 to the upper casing 22 and a stylus storage well 40. The lower casing 24 contains an electrical switching means 42 (as will be described later) , an electrically operative sound generating means 44, e.g., Texas Instrument Speech Chip TSP50C06, hereinafter TISC 44, a speaker 45, a printed circuit board 46 for housing the toy electronics (as will be described later) and a source of electrical power, e.g., battery (not shown), to be housed in a battery compartment 48. A storage surface 50 is coupled to the bottom of the lower casing 24 at a predetermined distance to form a storage area for the storage of, and the removal of writing cards (not shown) or another stylus (not shown) . Also, located on the bottom of the lower casing 24 is a battery cover plate 52 for closing off the battery compartment 48. Both the upper casing 22 and the lower casing 24 have handle portions 54A and 54B, respectively, that form a carrying handle once the two casings are secured together.

The writing assembly 28 can be in various forms, e.g., magic sheet, mark'n wipe sheet, plain writing paper, paper with pre-drawn figures (pre-drawn cards) , etc. In a magic sheet, for example, after the user writes/draws on the writing surface, the writing/drawing can be mechanically erased from the writing surface by raising the top surface 56 of the

writing assembly 28, thereby allowing the writing surface to be re-used. Similarly, a mark'n wipe sheet has writing surface from which the writing/drawing can be wiped-off from; thereby allowing the writing surface to be re-used. In the toy 20, shown in Figs. 1-2, the writing assembly 28 is in the form of a magic sheet comprising an upper layer 56, contained within a frame 58, and a lower layer 60. Located underneath the lower layer 60 is a pair of brackets 62A and 62B to support the writing assembly 28. The writing assembly 28 is disposed within the opening 26 and can accommodate a plurality of writing surfaces, e.g., magic sheet, mark'n wipe sheet, plain writing paper, pre-drawn cards.

As shown in Fig. 3, the electrical switching means 42, located underneath the writing assembly 28, comprises an upper layer 64, which is in the form of a mylar keyboard sheet 66 (or other type of a thin plastic sheet used in electrical membrane switches) and a lower layer 68. The bottom surface 70 of the mylar keyboard sheet 66 comprises a plurality (e.g., eight) of aligned, independent conductive ink strips 72A-72H, in parallel. Each conductive ink strip (e.g., 72A) has a first end that forms a conductive trace (e.g., 74A) for connection to a respective data input pin (Port A, PA0-PA7) on the TISC 44 (as will be described later) . All of the conductive traces 74A-74H are gathered to form a mylar tail 75 for ease of connection of the conductive traces 74A-74H to their respective data input pins (PA0-PA7) on the TISC 44, as shown in Fig. 5. Each of the data input pins PA0-PA7 is internally connected to the power input pin (V _DD ) of the TISC 44 by a respective pull-up resistor (not shown) . This configuration establishes a normally high state for PA0-PA7 and their corresponding conductive ink strips 72A-72H. The second end of each conductive ink strip 72A-72H is disposed under a respective contact 96A-96H of the sound selection buttons 30A-30H. The sound selection buttons 30A-30H comprise membrane sound selection switches formed by a common pole 92 tied to ground 94 with a plurality (e.g., eight) of contacts 96A-96H, each of which are physically oriented above a

respective end of the conductive ink strips 72A-72H. It should also be noted that the input line 98 to PBO of the TISC 44 is coupled to the voltage source 88 via resistors 100 and 102; this resistor configuration maintains a "high" input on input line 98 to PBO. This input line 98 to PBO is also physically oriented between each of the contacts 96A-96H and the corresponding second ends of the conductive ink strips 72A-72H, as shown in Fig. 9. The activation of one of the sound selection buttons 30A-30H causes its respective contact (i.e., 96A-96H) , the respective second end of a conductive ink strip (i.e., 72A-72H) and the input line 98 to be simultaneously grounded. The importance of only one conductive ink strip 72A-72H being grounded simultaneously with the input line 98 to PBO will be discussed later. Suffice it to say for now, that such a condition is necessary for the TISC 44 to retrieve a particular stored sound.

Depression of one of the sound selection buttons 30A-30H or pressure on the writing assembly 28 with the ON/OFF switch 34 in the ON position, causes the normally high state of PA0-PA7 and their corresponding conductive ink strips 72A-72H to momentarily switch to low states, for modifying the rate and pitch of the selected sound, as will be described in detail later.

As shown in Figs. 3-4, the lower layer 68 of the electrical switching means 42 comprises an insulated plate 76 having a plurality of parallel conductive lines 78, which are spaced equidistant and are raised off of the insulated plate 76. The conductive lines 78 are connected to a common lead 80, which is in turn connected to ground. The upper layer 64 is supported above the lower layer 68, by some support means, such that the conductive ink strips 72A-72H and conductive lines 78 face each other but are not in contact with each other. In the toy 20, shown in Fig. 2, the support columns 82, which are located external to the conductive ink strips 72A-72H and the conductive lines 78, are at a higher elevation than the conductive lines 78 so that when the upper layer 64 is secured to the lower casing 24, by securing the screws 84

in the bores 86 in support columns 82, the conductive ink strips 72A-72H and the conductive lines 78 are not in contact with each other. Alternatively, the upper layer 64 can be supported above the lower layer 68 by some other support means, e.g., epoxy (not shown), which can be disposed on top of the lower layer 68. When the lower layer 68 is subjacent the upper layer 64, the conductive ink strips 72A-72H and the conductive lines 78 form a "grid." Pressure at a particular location on the upper layer 64 causes a conductive ink strip (e.g., 72E) to contact a conductive line 78 in the lower layer 68, thereby momentarily grounding the conductive ink strip 72E which is normally high. The resulting voltage change monitored at the respective input pin PA4 of the TISC 44 is a high-low-high switching characteristic. As will be discussed later, the time between such voltage switching on any of the conductive ink strips 72A-72H is monitored by the TISC 44 in order to alter the pitch quality and the rate quality of the selected sound, accordingly.

In Figs. 2-4, the conductive ink strips 72A-72H are oriented perpendicular to the conductive lines 78. These conductive ink strips 72A-72H and conductive lines 78 could also be arranged in non-perpendicular orientations. However, the one limitation of such non-perpendicular orientation is that the conductive ink strips 72A-72H cannot be parallel to, and on top of the conductive lines 78 because such an orientation would eliminate the "grid" nature of the electrical switching means 42.

The toy electronics is shown in Fig. 5. The electronics basically comprise a voltage source 88 (e.g., +6VDC, 4 AA size batteries) , the ON/OFF switch 34, the sound selection buttons 30A-30H, the electrical switching means 42, the TISC 44, a reset circuit 90, and the speaker 45. The TISC 44 and the reset circuit 90 reside on the printed circuit board 46, as well as other discrete components (e.g., resistors and capacitors) .

Operation of the toy 20 is as follows: the user turns the ON/OFF switch 34 to the ON position. Then the user selects a particular sound by depressing one of the sound selection buttons 30A-30H. Each of the sound selection buttons 30A-30H represent a different type of sound, e.g., animal sounds, musical instrument sounds, bell, horn, gun, etc., which can be indicated by a visual representation of the sound, e.g., a cow for the sound "moo," a pig for the sound "oink, " a gun for the sound of a "bang," etc. As by way of illustration and not limitation, in the toy 20 there are eight sound selection buttons 30A-30H to accommodate eight different types of sounds. After the user selects a particular sound, the user begins to write/draw on the upper layer 56 of the writing assembly 28, thereby generating the selected sound, which is modified based on how fast and in what direction the user is writing/drawing at any moment. The selected sound emanates from the speaker 45 through the opening 32 of the toy 20.

Depending in what direction and on how fast the user writes/draws on the writing assembly 28, the selected sound being played back changes in pitch quality and rate quality, respectively. In the present invention, the pitch quality of the selected sound is defined as how low or high the selected sound is played back, whereas the rate quality of the sound is defined as the duration the selected sound is played back. For example, if the pitch quality of the selected sound is changed from low to high, then the selected sound being played back changes from a low note to a high note. The pitch quality of the selected sound changes as long as the user writes/draws in such a manner that the pressure applied, either by hand or the stylus 38, crosses different conductive ink strips 72A-72H. Therefore, if the pressure is applied in the same direction as a particular ink strip (e.g., 72A) , then the pitch quality of the selected sound being played back will not change. With respect to the rate quality, if the selected sound is the sound generated by a cow "moo, " then a change in the rate quality of this sound from slow to fast directly

modifies the sound being played back from "m o o" to

"moo. " This means that the faster the user writes/draws on the writing assembly 28, the faster the playback rate of the selected sound. In particular, the rate quality of the played back sound is directly related to the rate at which the user writes/draws on the writing assembly.

For example, in the toy 20, as shown in Fig. 2, the conductive ink strips 72A-72H are situated in a vertical direction 104 and the conductive lines 78 are situated in a horizontal direction 106. Therefore, if the user moves the stylus 38 in the vertical direction 104 only, he/she will remain on a particular conductive strip (e.g., 72B) , thereby maintaining a particular pitch quality of the selected sound being played back. As soon as the user moves the stylus 38 in a direction that crosses more than one conductive ink strip

72A-72H, the TISC 44 changes the pitch quality of the selected sound being played back each time a different conductive strip 72A-72H is crossed by the user. In addition, the rate at which the user moves the stylus 38 on the writing assembly 28 in any direction is detected by the TISC 44 which then modifies the rate of the selected sound being played back to reflect the rate of the user's movement of the stylus 38. Hence, the pitch quality and the rate quality of the selected sound being played back are being controlled independently based on the location and the rate of the user's movement on the writing assembly 28. It should be noted at this juncture that the vertical and horizontal orientations of the conductive ink strips 72A-72H and the conductive lines 78 could have been reversed; in that situation, the pitch quality of the played-back sound would remain unchanged if the user's movement was in a horizontal direction. On the other hand, such a reversal of the orientation would have no effect on detecting the rate of the user's movement.

As discussed earlier, the sound generating means, as used in toy 20, is implemented using a TISC 44 having an internal microcomputer 108, a speech synthesizer 110, an arithmetic

logic unit (ALU) 112, a random-access-memory (RAM) 114 and timing circuits 116 (Fig. 6) . The TISC 44 uses a Linear Predictive Coding (LPC) speech synthesis algorithm for the storage of and re-creation of the selected sound. An internal microprocessor 118 fetches speech data from an internal read- only-memory (ROM) 120, decodes the sound data and sends the decoded data to the speech synthesizer 110. Fig. 7 is a system block diagram of the TISC 44, showing the microprocessor 118, the RAM 114 and the speech synthesizer 110 in more detail. Fig. 8 is a flow chart of the sound selection and the steps used to alter the rate quality and the pitch quality of the selected sound in the toy 20. It should be noted at this juncture that the inventors of the present invention have requested the TSP50C06 manufacturer to load the desired sounds in the toy 20, as well as the code required to implement the flow chart shown in Fig. 8, into the ROM 120.

The TISC 44 has been configured in accordance with the flow chart in Fig. 8 to modify the time between LPC data updates in order to control the rate quality of the selected playback sound in direct response to the user's movement on the writing assembly 28. In addition, this configuration also modifies the original LPC pitch value of the selected sound based on the user's movement on the writing assembly 28.

In particular, controlling the rate of the selected sound being played back is achieved by determining the time between any voltage changes detected at input pins PA0-PA7 due to user pressure on the writing assembly 28 and then modifying the time between LPC data updates accordingly. The time between changes is measured in counts by a counter. These counts, represented by a temporary variable "F" have an operating range of approximately 16<F<80. As shown in Fig. 7, each updated value of F is loaded into the Timer Prescale Register (TPR) 122 and is used by the microprocessor 118 to modify the LPC data updates. Therefore, unlike in most speech synthesis operations using a TISC 44 where the contents of the TPR 122 remain constant, the contents of the TPR 122 used in the toy

20 are changing. When the toy 20 is initialized (by a power- up or a reset) , a mid-range F value of 46 is loaded into the TPR 122, as shown in Fig.8.

With respect to modifying the pitch quality of the selected sound, again the detected voltage changes at input pins PA0-PA7 due to user pressure on the writing assembly 28 are utilized. However, in this operation, the particular input pin PAO, PA1, PA2, etc., that is momentarily grounded by the user pressure is detected by the microprocessor 118 and the integer representing that particular input pin, (i.e., "2" for PA2 when it is grounded or "3" for PA3 when it is grounded, etc.) establishes the Pitch Factor (PF) that is multiplied with the original LPC value to form a "scaled LPC pitch value" that is then loaded into the Pitch Register (PR) 124 as shown in Fig. 7. The scaled LPC pitch value either raises or lowers the pitch quality during the playback. Each time another input pin is momentarily grounded, the corresponding PF is multiplied with the original LPC pitch value and this newly scaled LPC pitch value is then loaded into the PR 124.

With respect to selecting a particular sound using the sound selection buttons 30A-30H, it was stated earlier, that the retrieval of a particular sound by the sound selection buttons 30A-30H is achieved whenever one conductive ink strip 72A-72H is grounded simultaneously with the input line 98 to PBO. When only one of the input pins PA0-PA7 is grounded simultaneously with the input line 98 to PBO, a particular numerical indicator is generated and stored within the TISC 46 that permits the desired sound data to be selected from memory, in preparation for the rate quality and/or pitch quality modification.

In addition, the toy 20 is reset each time a particular sound selection button 30A-30H is depressed. Upon activation of a sound selection button 30A-30H, the reset circuit 90 generates a low level pulse that is entered into the INIT pin

of the TISC 44, which resets the microprocessor 118. In addition, internal software provides an energy saving mechanism to prevent rapid discharge of the batteries, in particular, the microprocessor 118 executes a SETOFF instruction that places the TISC 44 into a low power dissipation mode whenever there is no user input for a predetermined time, e.g., five minutes.

While the invention has been described in connection with what are considered to the most practical and preferred embodiments, it is understood that the invention is not limited to the disclosed embodiments, but on the contrary, is intended to cover various modifications and equivalent arrangements included within the spirit and scope of the appended claims. Without further elaboration, the foregoing will so fully illustrate my invention, that others make by current or future knowledge, readily adapt the same for use under the various conditions of service.