Educational/board game apparatus

• US 5,088,928 A
• Filed: 03/16/1990
• Issued: 02/18/1992
• Est. Priority Date: 11/15/1988
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Chan, James K.
• Original Assignee: Chan, James K.
• Inventors: Chan, James K.
• Primary Examiner(s): Layno, Benjamin
• Assistant Examiner(s): Harris, Jessica J.
• Application Number:
  US07/494,972
• Time in Patent Office: 704 Days
• Field of Search: 434/334, 434/335, 434/339, 178/18, 273/237, 273/238
• US Class Current: 434/339
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 2003/00347 the playing surface as a whole being replaceable
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 2003/00996 Board games available as video games
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 3/00643 Electric board games; Electric features of board games electric word or number games A63F3/0421; computer chess G06F; electric raffle games A63F3/081
• CPC Class Codes: G09B 7/066 with answer indicating cards, blocks

Abstract

Method and apparatus for educational games comprising a plurality of printed cards/boards, and a novel low-cost touch pad with interface cable to the personal computer game-port. When an eductional game is played, the player responds to computer questions/words/graphic object by pressing the corresponding answer in the printed card/board which is placed on top of the touch pad. This selection in terms of touched coordinates of the touch pad is sensed by the computer through the computer input/game port. Both computer generated sound and animation graphic pictures in terms of video games or others are used for either positive or negative feedback to the player. A variation of the same apparatus can be used for playing various computerized board games with a plurality of moving game pieces, and game boards by one or more players.

Claims

1. An educational game apparatus for use by one or more players that incorporates:

a plurality of printed sheets;

a low-cost touch pad with interface cable to a personal computer system having a game port, said touch pad interfaced directly to said game port;

where the printed sheet contains a multiplicity of answer regions;

where said answer sheet lies over the low-cost touch pad;

where said touch pad comprises

a. a first sheet of insulating material with one surface coated with a first plurality of parrallel conductive strips which are connected at one end with a resistive coating strip, which has a terminal resistance value in the range compatible with that of a joystick potentiometer;

b. a second sheet of insulating material with one surface coated with a second plurality of parrallel conductive strips which are connected at one end with a resistive coating strip, which has a terminal resistance value in the range compatible with that of a joystick potentiometer;

c. A ground return network of a plurality of parallel conductive strips coated on either the conductor coating surface of said first sheet or said second sheet of the insulating material, each strip of said network interleaved with said plurality of conductive strips such that each conductive strip of said ground return network is in closer proximity to an associated sensing conductive strip than the separation distance between any two adjacent sensing conductors;

d. a spacer pattern of a plurality of dots/bumps coated on either the conductor coating surface of said first sheet or said second sheet of the insulating material, each dot/bump of said pattern printed in-between the printed conductors;

e. means for orienting said first sheet of insulating material and said second sheet of insulating material such that the conductive strips of the two sheets are facing each other in orthogonal orientation forming a touch position sensing region, and such that by pressing a selected point on the oriented sheets, a selected on or two of said plurality of conductive strips on one sheet come into contact with the interleaved conductive strips of the other sheet, thereby changing the terminal resistance values proportionally to the touched position in the said touch position sensing region;

f. means for implementing two separate touch switches on the said two insulating sheets outside the said touch position sensing region;

g. means for interfacing the resistive coating strips and the two said separate touch switches directly to the game port of said personal computer system with the same pin configuration as the commonly known joystick device connector pin allocation;

h. means for the resistance between the last position sensing conductor and the common ground return much larger than the resistance between any other position sensing conductors by lengthening and/or narrowing the corresponding portion of the resistive coatings;

and where said personal computer system calibrates the touch pad, displays questions, decodes the touched position, checks for the correctness or incorrectness of the player'"'"'s selection, and provides video and sound feedback to the player.

2. A computerized board game apparatus for use by one or more players that incorporates:

a plurality of moving game pieces, a plurality of game sheets/boards, a low-cost touch pad with interface cable to a personal computer system having a game port, said touch pad interfaced directly to said game port;

where a game sheet/board lies over the low-cost touch pad;

where a moving game piece is pressed and placed over the game sheet to indicate a player'"'"'s current position to other players and to the computer;

where said touch pad comprises

a. a first sheet of insulating material with one surface coated with a first plurality of parrallel conductive strips which are connected at one end with a resistive coating strip, which has a terminal resistance value in the range compatible with that of a joystick potentiometer;

b. a second sheet of insulating material with one surface coated with a second plurality of parrallel conductive strips which are connected at one end with a resistive coating strip, which has a terminal resistance value in the range compatible with that of a joystick potentiometer;

c. a ground return network of a plurality of parallel conductive strips coated on either the conductor coating surface of said first sheet or said second sheet of the insulating material, each strip of said network interleaved with said plurality of conductive strips such that each conductive strip of said ground return network is in closer proximity to an associated sensing conductive strip than the separation distance between any two adjacent sensing conductors;

d. a spacer pattern of a plurality of dots/bumps coated on either the conductor coating surface of said first sheet or said second sheet of the insulating material, each dot/bump of said pattern printed in-between the printed conductors;

e. means for orienting said first sheet of insulating material and said second sheet of insulating material such that the conductive strips of the two sheets are facing each other in orthogonal orientation forming a touch position sensing region, and such that by pressing a selected point on the oriented sheets, a selected one or two of said plurality of conductive strips on one sheet come into contact with the interleaved conductive strips of the other sheet, thereby changing the terminal resistance values proportionally to the touched position in the said touch position sensing region;

f. means for implementing two separate touch switches on the said two insulating sheets outside the said touch position sensing region;

g. means for interfacing the resistive coating strips and the two said separate touch switches directly to the game port of said personal computer system with the same pin configuration as the commonly known joystick device connector pin allocation;

h. means for the resistance between the last position sensing conductor and the common ground return much larger than the resistance between any other position sensing conductors by lengthening and/or narrowing the corresponding portion of the resistive coatings;

and where said computer system calibrates the touch pad, displays game rules, rolls dice, decodes each player'"'"'s moved position, keeps score or game status, serves as a referee, and provides video and sound feedback to the players.