FIELD OF THE INVENTION
This invention relates to toy guns and more particularly to a toy gun which shoots harm-less balls from a gun of conventional design such as a paint ball gun. The toy gun is suitable for use in a game in which two or more participants each has a like toy gun and each is wearing a garment having an impact sensor or detector. When the impact detector or sensor is struck by a ball, it activates a display such as a light, score board and the like to record a hit.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Games are well known in which participants have various forms of guns for shooting each other with harmless solid objects, liquids or beams of light and for recording the number of hits for determining the winners of the games. Such games can cause disagreements among the participants such as whether a hit has occurred or not. If the only way in which a hit is detected is whether the hit is seen by the person who shoots the gun that causes the hit or by the person who feels the hit, then disagreements about whether there was or was not a hit are bound to occur.
Such disagreements can spoil a game that was otherwise enjoyed by the participants.
Toy guns have been designed to detect a hit in such a way that there can be no dispute about whether it occurred or not. A paint ball gun for example shoots balls which rupture on impact and spray paint over the area where the impact takes place. The presence of the paint cannot be denied nor can its location. Questions about who was hit and by whom are answered quickly and with little or no arguments. However the consequences of a hit by a paint ball are not pleasant. The paint can permanently stain the participants' clothing, enter his eyes or mouth and be very uncomfortable if it flows down his sleeves or down his neck and under his shirt.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
I have invented a toy gun which shoots harmless balls from a gun of conventional design such as a paint ball gun. The ball is composed of soft foam rubber or like soft material so that it does no harm to the person who is hit by the ball. The toy gun may be composed of a gun of conventional design such as a paint ball gun in which a nozzle of my design is substituted for the barrel of the paint ball gun. The toy gun may be used in a game in which the participants each has one such gun and each wears a garment with an impact detector or sensor. When a ball hits the impact detector or sensor, the hit is displayed in such a way that there can be no dispute about whether it occurred or not. Finally, there is no trace of the hit on the person who was hit, the only evidence of it is on the display.
Briefly, the toy gun of my invention has a nozzle from which a ball having a flexible outer wall is expelled, The toy gun includes a cylindrical tube having a longitudinal axis and an inner diameter slightly less than the diameter of the ball. The tube has an open inlet at one of its ends for receipt of a stream of gas under pressure and an open outlet at the other end through which the ball is loaded into the tube in the absence of the gas stream and is impelled from the tube by the presence of the gas stream. A plurality of fins is mounted within the tube and function to prevent the ball from blocking the inlet. The fins are oriented such as to cause the gas stream which contacts the fins to flow parallel to the longitudinal axis of the tube.
2 DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
The invention is described with reference to the accompanying drawings in which:
Figure 1 is an elevation of a known paint ball gun;
Figure 2 is an elevation of the paint ball gun of Figure 1 in which the nozzle of the invention has been substituted for the barrel of the gun;
Figure 3 is an elevation of the nozzle from a side;
Figure 4 is an elevation of the nozzle from an end;
Figure 5 is a perspective view of the nozzle;
Figure 6 is a section of the nozzle;
Figure 7 is an elevation of a conventional sponge rubber ball;
Figure 8 is an elevation of the ball in conjunction of the nozzle of the invention; and Figures 9 and 10 are elevations of two embodiments of the vest of the invention.
Like reference characters refer to like parts throughout the description of the drawings.
DESCRIPTION OF PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS
With reference to Figure 1, a toy gun, generally 10, is used to shoot paint balls and is typical of such guns. The toy gun is not the subject of the present invention.
Paint balls are stored in a magazine (not illustrated) and are fed into the breech formed in the housing 14 of the gun through a feed tube 16. A passageway is formed in the housing which extends from the breech to the bore of the barrel 18. The barrel is removably attached to the housing by threads on its outer
3 wall which mate with threads formed on the wall which defines the passageway in the housing .
A gas cylinder 20 containing carbon dioxide or air under pressure is attached to the bottom of the handle 22 of the toy gun. Gas from the cylinder flows through a hose 24 to an elbow 26 at the bottom of a hand grip 28 and from there flows through a tube in the hand grip to a compressed gas chamber 30 for holding a predetermined volume of gas necessary for each firing of the gun.
When the trigger 32 of the gun is pulled, one paint ball in the breech of the gun is driven by the compressed gas through the passageway in the housing and through barrel 18 and discharges through the open end of the barrel.
The foregoing description is of a typical paint ball gun and the way in which it operates.
In Figure 2, the barrel of the gun has been removed by unwinding it from housing 14 of the toy gun and has been replaced by the nozzle 40 of the invention. The nozzle is illustrated in more detail in Figures 3 to 6. With reference first to Figures, 3, 5 and 6, the nozzle has a hollow cylindrical wall 44 which is open at one end 46 and is closed at the other end 48 by an annular end wall 48a. Attached to the end wall is a cylindrical connector 50 having a longitudinal axis which lies on the same line as the longitudinal axis of the cylindrical wall of the nozzle. The line is identified as 50-50.
The diameter of the inside passageway 52 of the connector is smaller than that of the inner passageway 54 of the cylindrical wall of the nozzle and the two passageways are in com-munication with each other.
4 The outer wall 56 of the connector is threaded for mating with the threads of the housing which serve to connect the barrel of the gun to the housing.
With reference to Figures 4 and 6, mounted within the cylindrical wall of the nozzle is a number of fins or prongs 60. The fins extend radially outward from the annular wall 62 which defines the inside passageway 52 of connector 50. Each fin is integral with end wall 48 of the nozzle and has an inner edge 66 which extends parallel to the longitudinal axis of the cylindrical wall and an outer edge 68 which narrows toward the top edge 70 of the fin. The fins are accord-ingly oriented such as to cause the stream of pressurized gas which flows through the nozzle in a direction parallel to the longitudinal axis of the nozzle.
Fins 60 not only serve to produce a laminar flow of gas through the nozzle but also to prevent paint balls from passing through the nozzle. If the toy gun is being used to shoot the balls described below, it is not desirable that it also shoot any paint balls which may be in the gun and which are unknown to the person who is handling the gun.
With reference to Figures 7 and 8, ball 74 which the toy gun is designed to shoot when equipped with the nozzle of the invention, is conventional and is composed of light weight, soft material such as foam rubber. The core of the ball need not be soft but preferably is since harder material tends to weigh more than soft material. Softness and light weight are important attributes of the ball since the purpose of the game which is played with the toy gun and ball involves two or more participants each shooting at each other and awarding points every time they strike each other with balls shot from their guns. Obviously the game will not be enjoyable if participants who are struck by balls feel pain or are hurt as a result of the strike.
With reference to Figure 8, loading of the ball involves pushing it inward into the fully open end 46 of the nozzle. The diameter of the passageway in the nozzle should be slightly less than the diameter of the ball so that the ball will stay put in the nozzle however the toy gun is held and only come out when subjected to a blast of compressed gas. The further in the passageway of the nozzle, the faster the ball will travel as it leaves the nozzle.
Foam rubbers balls having a diameter of about 5 cm. are suitable and are widely available.
If such balls are used, the diameter of the inner passageway or bore 54 of the nozzle should be about 4.7 cm.
With reference to Figure 9, a vest 80 is adapted to be worn over the chest of a participant of the game played with the toy gun of the invention. The vest is equipped with a conventional impact detector 82, a belt 84 for holding the vest to the body of the participant, lights 86a,b in the shoulder areas of the vest, a pouch 88 for extra gas cylinders of CO2 or air and a pouch 90 for batteries and a radio transmitter.
A more simplified vest is illustrated in Figure 10. In that drawing, vest 92 provided with lights 94a,b, an impact sensor 96, pouches 98 for balls and a belt 100 to which the pouches for balls are attached. However, pouches for batteries, radio transmitter and gas cylinders are dispensed with in vest 92.
When the impact indicators are struck by a ball, they activate lights 86a,b and 94a,b on the vests and also, with respect to vest 80, a display (not illustrated) remote from the vest. The display indicates the number of hits and also the identity of the participant whose ball struck impact indicator 82. The display can also be on vest 80 itself or on a scoreboard.
The scoreboard is preferably separate from vest 80 and is activated by radio signals from the radio transmitter which in turn is activated by impact indicator 82. The scoreboard accordingly indicates the number of hits on vest 80 and the source of each hit The scoreboard can also have an timer for recording the time when the hits occurred and for timing the length of each game.
There are a number of impact indicators which are suitable for detecting and commun-icating hits on a vest. U.S. patents no. 5,092,607 to Ramsay et al, no.
5,575,479 to Ayres and no.
4,440,400 to Neuberger all describe impact indicators which are suitable for this purpose.
It will be understood, of course, that modifications can be made in the nozzle and vests of the invention without departing from the scope and purview of the invention as defined in the appended claims.