Patent ID: 6739874
Filing Date: 2004-05-25
Classification: G09B

Abstract:
An electronic educational toy having a housing for teaching the letters of an alphabet, comprising:a plurality of audio prompts output by a speaker enclosed within the toy housing, a prompt including a question or instruction having at least one correct response, the question or instruction designed to encourage a child to make a cognitive selection of a letter and indicate the cognitive selection of the letter by placing a graspable object on a work platform, the work platform formed on at least a portion of a substantially flat surface of the toy housing; one or more sensors capable of sensing the placement of the object by a child on the work platform; the graspable object capable of being placed and sensed in arbitrary child-defined locations on the work platform, the placement of the graspable object on the work platform in response to the question or instruction indicating the cognitive selection by the child of the letter corresponding to the question or instruction; a processor enclosed within the toy housing capable of receiving information from the one or more sensors corresponding to the placement of the object by the child on the work platform and using the information from the sensors to determine whether the child's cognitive selection of the letter as indicated by the placement of the object by the child on the work platform corresponds to a correct response to the question or instruction; a first audio feedback response output by the speaker enclosed within the toy housing, the first audio feedback response indicating that the letter selected by the child corresponds to a correct response to the question or instruction; and a second audio feedback response output by the speaker enclosed within the toy housing, the second audio feedback response indicating that the letter selected by the child does not correspond to a correct response to the question or instruction, the toy housing enclosing the speaker, at least a portion of the one or more sensors, the processor and educational software executable by the processor for teaching a child letters of the alphabet, the housing having a substantially flat surface, at least a portion of which comprises the work platform.