US2197976A - Educational toy - Google Patents

Description

w. J. FLETCHER 2,197,976 I EDUCATIONAL TOY April 23, 1940.

Filed March 17, 1939 Mr W - f w vm ATTO R N EYS Patented Apr. 23, 1940 EDUCATIONAL TOY Walter-J. Fletcher, Albany, N. Y., assignor to' I The Embossing Company, Albany N. Y., a corporation of New York Application March 1-1, 1939, Serial No. 262*,395"

(c1. ass-29) 1 Claim.

This invention relates to educational toys of the kind designed to develop coordination between the mental and physical faculties of children while providing amusement. The toy com- S prises in general a board having apertures for -which pegs are provided. The pegs are designed to be driven through the apertures in which they fit iaiily tightly. A"mallet is provided for accomplishing this and a child may hammer away 10 at will upon a peg and gradually advance it through its aperture.

It has been a common practice to provide cylindrical pegs cut from dowel rods at right angles to the axis of the rods. The apertures in the 1S boardare plain cylindrical holes so that a peg is always held in the board solong as any portion of it extends within an aperture. With such construction the upper end of the peg can not be struck with a mallet after it has passed into its go aperture. Without the intermediary or a driit pin or another peg, the peg cannot be removed from engagement with the boardwithout pulling the peg from its aperture. It is the object of the.

present invention to provide a toy of this nature g having such construction as to enable thecomplete removal of a peg byhammerblows delivered directly upon the uppermost end of the peg. 'I'his' l accomplish by the relieving or the tight fit between the peg and the aperture so as 30 to release frictional attachment therebetween. at

or just ,prlor to theadvance oi the peg to a position in which its uppermost end is fiush with I v I other end of .the'peg, these slotsbeing at right 'the upper surface or the board. Another object of the invention isto provide 35 a peg board and peg construction which, while retaining all or its qualities having to do withteaching physical and mental coordination, pro,- vides further amusement and attraction because.

of. the capabilitybf knocking the pegs through 1 the board asthe successful culmination of a continuous series of lows.

. other objects and advantages will appear hereinaiter irom thedescription' and drawing.

lnthedrawingy w mg. 1 .is a perspective view of the foyer Fig. 2 is a'section on line 2-1.

I have illustrated my invention in conjunction with a board having eight apertures arranged in that my invention isnot limited to the number of apertures and pegs utilized or to their arrangement. In toys designed for promoting coordination between. the physical and mental Iacul ties in children, the pegs may be of different colore and the pegs and apertures may' be oi ditbe engageable only with apertures or correspondto withstand mallet blows.

pegs, they may be slotted axially with the slots vide elasticity which makes allowance for the rewith the wall oi an aperture when the peg has series of twos and tours, but it is to be understood I from the endr'cf the peg which is at least equal to ierent sizes so that the. pegs pf anyone size will I ing size. So far as the presentinvention is con; cerned, the number of pegs, their colors and the size of the pegs and apertures are all discretion- '5 ary factors which may-be availed of, depending upon the attraction qualities desired or the degree of instruction it is desired to impart. In the toy illustrated, all of th pegs m are fashioned to engage with any one of .the apertures II in the board l2.- .The board is supported by 1 standards l3 and I4 in a manner to provide enough space beneath the board for permitting the pegs to fall through as they are released from the apertures in the board. The board may be made of wood and should be substantial enough The apertures may be provided by drilling holes through the board.

Each peg is designed to fit tightly in the holes, but the fit is such as to yield to blows from a 90 mallet i5 in the hand of, a child. A convenient manner of constructing the pegs is to cut them from wooden dowel rods. The dowel rods are so chosen that the maximum nornialdiameter of, the pegs will be slightly oversize in respect to the'diameter of the holes. In order to augment the natural compression property of the wooden intersecting the axis of the pegs, but plain um I slotted pegs may be used, if desired.

As may beseen in Fig.1, a slot I6 is cut from one end or the peg, and a slot i1 is cut from the I angles to each other and extending about threequarters of the lengthoi' a peg. The slots pro- 350 duction in girth of a peg which is necessary for its passage through an associated aperture.

In order that a D 8 may be driven through the board without interruption oi the blows being delivered upon it, I. have so formed the'end or the peg that it will become free from engagement been advanced almost through the board. This I accomplish by reducing the diameter of the peg near its end to a degree' and for a length sumcient to tree the peg from the aperture when its uppermost end has been advanced to a position approximately fiushwith the uppermost side of thgboarl- "f v I have found that to taper the ends of the pegs is a convenient way of accomplishing this. The taper or other form or girth reduction should be such that it provides a reduced girth at a distance,

the thickness of the board or the length of the wall of the aperture which engages the peg. As illustrated in Fig. 2, this reduced girth is in a radial plane located at 0-11. Its axial distance from the end 20 is greater than the length of the wall 2| of the aperture through which the peg has been driven. The result of this construction is that when the peg has been advanced through the aperture until the plane H is just above the. under surface of the board, a final hammer blow will dislodge the peg from further frictional engagement with the wall of the aperture. It will then drop of its own accord below the board from which position it is again immediately available for use.

It will be appreciated that the frictional contact between the peg and the wall of an aperture will be less between the large base of the truncated cone and the plane aa, but that the large base and plane aa may be made to coincide if desired.

It is preferable that both ends of the peg be similarly truncated so that the ends be interchangeable. peg may be readily started in an aperture before. any hammering is done so that even a one year old child would not be confronted with difilculty in this maneuver. A peg is shown in the starting position at the right-hand side of Fig. 2. In this position the plane aa coincides with the uppermost surface of the board. Another advantage of truncating both ends of the peg is that such construction prevents injury to the portion of the peg which engages an aperture. Any burr developed about the boundary of the .end surface being hammered cannot extend out- This has the advantage that the ward of the boundary sufflciently to impair its introduction into an aperture .or its passage therethrough.

What is claimed is:

An educational toy comprising a board having a plurality of holes passing therethrough, a plurality of pegs having portions intermediate their ends which are frictionally engageable within said holes but capable of passage through said holes under influence of force applied to thepegs, said pegs being provided with laterally reduced end-portions beyond the limits of said frictionally engageable intermediate portions and with no lateral dimension thereof as great as the lateral dimension of said intermediate portions, each of said reduced end-portions having a striking surface and a bordering surface non-engage-' means forsupporting said board at sufficient elevation to permit a pe to drop from the board when it has been advanced to a position in which its intermediate frictionally engageable portion is no longer in frictional engagement with the wall of its associated hole and the reduced end portion comes opposite the wall of the hole and frictional restraint upon the free movement of the peg through the hole is relieved.

WALTER J. FLETCHER.

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