Patent ID: 8777689

Claim:
A transforming toy vehicle responsive to a moveable magnet-responsive feature disposed on a drive surface, comprising: a chassis including an undercarriage, a forward axle slot and a rearward axle slot, said undercarriage including a detector disposed between said axle slots, said detector including a responsive element magnetically-responsive to the moveable magnet-responsive feature; a motive system moveably coupled to said chassis with said motive system including a forward axle moveably coupled within said forward axle slot and a rearward axle moveably coupled within said rearward axle slot, said motive system configured to translate a location of said detector relatively uniformly over the drive surface in a drive direction and over the moveable magnet-responsive feature, said motive system including a free drive mode and an inhibited drive mode wherein said mode of said motive system is adapted to establish a state for a mode control latch, said state for said mode control latch including a latched state when said motive system is in said free drive mode and in a first orientation relative to said chassis and a not latched state when said motive system is in said inhibited drive mode and in a second orientation relative to said chassis different from said first orientation; a housing, rotatably coupled to said chassis and responsive to said state of said mode control latch, said housing having an untransformed mode and a transformed mode, said housing transitioning from said untransformed mode to said transformed mode when said state of said mode control latch changes from said latched state to said unlatched state; a latching mechanism, responsive to said mode control latch, including a first latch element coupled to said housing and a second latch element complementary to said first latch element and selectively engageable with said first latch element, said latching mechanism including a latched mode configured to hold said housing in said untransformed mode as long as said second latch element engages said first latch element and said latching mechanism including a released mode configured to release said housing from said untransformed mode wherein said housing rotatably transforms to said transformed mode responsive to said biasing mechanism; wherein said detector is configured to respond to the moveable magnet-responsive feature when said motive system positions said chassis and said detector over the moveable magnet-responsive feature, said detector engaging the moveable magnet-responsive feature and coupling said chassis to the moveable magnet-responsive feature while said motive system continues to move over the drive surface relative to said chassis after coupling of said responsive element with the moveable magnet-responsive feature, with said motive system adapted to move said axles relative to said chassis from said free drive mode to said inhibited drive mode and releasing said latch elements.