KR102482445B1 - Alphabet block and method for fabricating the same for use in education of alphabet - Google Patents

Abstract

Letter blocks having the shape of letters such as the English alphabet and Korean used in letter recognition, educational devices and methods that can arouse interest in infants and toddlers and increase the effect of letter education by educating letters by contacting and recognizing them on a touch screen, and A manufacturing method thereof is provided.

Description

Alphabet block used in alphabet education method and manufacturing method thereof

The present invention relates to a letter block having a letter shape and a method for manufacturing the same, and more particularly, to educate letters such as Hangul by contacting and recognizing a touch panel to arouse interest in users, such as infants and the elderly, It relates to a letter block used to increase the effect of letter education and a manufacturing method thereof.

A variety of teaching aids have been developed to teach letters such as the English alphabet and Hangul to infants, the elderly, and the like. For example, there is a method of displaying and educating video contents related to Hangeul consonants through a terminal, but this is an educational method through hearing and sight, and has limitations in inducing play activities such as infants and toddlers and the elderly. As another example of a teaching aid for consonant education, there is a method of inducing play behaviors of infants, toddlers, and the elderly through blocks having shapes of Korean consonants. In this method, infants and toddlers arouse interest through play activities by fitting blocks in the shape of Hangul letters into grooves provided in play tools, and infants and the elderly recognize the shapes of Hangul letters not only visually but also through tactile senses. It has the advantage of increasing the educational effect of Hangeul consonants. However, Hangul consonants consist of a total of 24 phonemes, including 14 consonants and 10 vowels, so a groove into which all Hangul consonants can be inserted must be prepared in the teaching aid for education through Hangul consonants blocks. There is a problem in that the overall size of the device is increased, so that a lot of space is occupied, and the cost of the teaching aid is increased.

The present invention is a consonant of letters such as the English alphabet and Korean used in a consonant education apparatus and method capable of inducing interest in infants, young children, the elderly, etc. and increasing the educational effect of consonants by educating consonants by contacting and recognizing them on a touch panel. It provides a magnetic block having a shape and a manufacturing method thereof.

The problem to be solved by the present invention is not limited to the problem mentioned above. Other technical problems not mentioned will be clearly understood by those skilled in the art from the following description.

A first aspect of the present invention provides a set of letter blocks contacted and recognized by a touch screen of an electronic device, each letter block comprising:

a consonant block body corresponding to the shape of consonant phonemes including consonants and vowels; And,

The magnetic block body includes 4 or 5 conductive unique points electrically connected to the magnetic block body on the bottom surface,
Two of the unique points are spaced apart from each other in the horizontal or vertical direction of the bottom surface of the alphabet block to define an orientation reference line used to determine the direction in which the Korean alphabet block contacts the touch screen,
Among the unique points, the remaining unique points other than the two unique points defining the alignment reference line are arranged differently with respect to the alignment reference line by the two unique points so that parent blocks can be distinguished.

A second aspect of the present invention provides a method for manufacturing a letter block that is contacted and recognized by a touch screen of an electronic device, the method comprising:

preparing a conductive material;

injecting the conductive material into a mold defining an internal cavity having a shape corresponding to the magnetic block; includes
Preparing the conductive material,
Including blending conductive carbon and silicon,
Method of manufacturing a letter block.

According to the embodiment of the present invention, it is possible to accurately and efficiently recognize a letter block based on distance information between a plurality of unique points provided in the letter block, and to recognize the arrangement direction of the letter block in contact with the touch screen for education. effect can be further enhanced.

The effects of the present invention are not limited to the effects described above. Effects not mentioned will be clearly understood by those skilled in the art from this specification and the accompanying drawings.

1 is a block diagram of an exemplary electronic device in which the character recognition and/or educational techniques disclosed herein may be employed.
2 is a schematic diagram for explaining Hangul consonant blocks to be recognized by consonant recognition and/or educational technology disclosed in this specification.
3A and 3B are a perspective view and a plan view of a Korean consonant 'c' consonant block.
4 shows a consonant block for the Korean consonant 'P' in one embodiment of the present invention.
5 illustrates a usage environment of an electronic device and a letter block to which the technology disclosed in this specification can be adopted.
6 is a flowchart of a method for recognizing a parental block according to an embodiment of the present invention.
FIG. 7 is a diagram for explaining step S20 of FIG. 6 .
FIG. 8 is a diagram illustrating Hangul consonant blocks and reference distance information to be recognized by consonant recognition and/or educational technology disclosed in this specification.
9 schematically shows a method for manufacturing a letter block according to the present invention.

Other advantages and features of the present invention, and methods of achieving them, will become clear with reference to the detailed description of the following embodiments in conjunction with the accompanying drawings. However, the present invention is not limited to the embodiments disclosed below, and the present invention is only defined by the scope of the claims. Even if not defined, all terms (including technical or scientific terms) used herein have the same meaning as generally accepted by common technology in the prior art to which this invention belongs. A general description of well-known configurations may be omitted so as not to obscure the subject matter of the present invention. Where possible, identical reference numerals are used for identical or corresponding components in the drawings of the present invention. In order to help understanding of the present invention, some components in the drawings may be slightly exaggerated or reduced.

It should be noted that technical terms used in this specification are only used to describe specific embodiments and are not intended to limit the spirit of the technology disclosed in this specification. In addition, technical terms used in this specification should be interpreted in terms commonly understood by those of ordinary skill in the field to which the technology disclosed in this specification belongs, unless specifically defined otherwise in this specification. It should not be interpreted in an overly comprehensive sense or in an excessively reduced sense. In addition, when technical terms used in this specification are erroneous technical terms that do not accurately express the spirit of the technology disclosed in this specification, they should be replaced with technical terms that those skilled in the art can correctly understand. In addition, general terms used in this specification should be interpreted as defined in advance or according to context, and should not be interpreted in an excessively reduced sense.

Terms including ordinal numbers such as first and second used herein may be used to describe various components, but the components should not be limited by the terms. These terms are only used for the purpose of distinguishing one component from another. For example, a first element may be termed a second element, and similarly, a second element may be termed a first element, without departing from the scope of the present invention.

Terms used in this specification are only used to describe specific embodiments, and are not intended to limit the present invention. In referring to components such as features, numbers, steps, operations, components, parts, parts, modules, etc. described in this specification, not only one target component is referred to unless otherwise specified in relation to the quantity It should be understood to include a plurality of individuals as well.

In this specification, terms such as "comprise", "have" or "having" designate that the features, numbers, steps, operations, components, parts, parts, modules, or combinations thereof described in the specification exist. However, it should be understood that it does not preclude the existence or addition of one or more other features, numbers, steps, operations, components, parts, modules, or combinations thereof.

In this specification, 'and/or' should be understood to include any combination of the recited subject matter.

'~unit' or '~module' used throughout this specification is a unit that processes at least one function or operation, and may mean, for example, a hardware component such as software, FPGA, or ASIC. However, '~unit' or '~module' is not limited to software or hardware. '~unit' or '~module' may be configured to be in an addressable storage medium and may be configured to reproduce one or more processors. As an example, '~unit' or '~module' includes components such as software components, object-oriented software components, class components, and task components, processes, functions, properties, may include procedures, subroutines, segments of program code, drivers, firmware, microcode, circuitry, data, databases, data structures, tables, arrays and variables. Functions provided by components and '~units' or '~modules' may be performed separately by a plurality of components and '~units' or '~modules', or may be integrated with other additional components. .

The letter blocks used in the letter recognition and education technology according to an embodiment of the present invention have conductive unique points, and when the letter blocks come into contact with the touch screen, the touch screen recognizes the unique points of the corresponding letter block in a capacitive manner and (recognizing each position of unique points on the touch screen), calculating the distance between unique points and comparing the obtained information on the distances between points with information on distances between reference points predefined for each letter block recognize the block.

The consonant block according to the embodiment of the present invention, for example, recognizes the consonant block by contacting the touch screen, which has the consonant shape of Hangul and has distinct unique points for each consonant, to recognize the consonant block visually and/or audibly. By displaying, it can be used to educate children for users such as infants and the elderly.

1 is a block diagram of an exemplary electronic device 100 capable of educating infants and toddlers by recognizing letter blocks disclosed in this specification. For example, the electronic device 100 may be any electronic device having a capacitive touch screen, and the size of the touch screen should be at least larger than a size capable of contacting a recognition object, for example, a letter block.

Referring to FIG. 1 , the electronic device 100 includes a processing unit 110, a memory unit 120, a power supply unit 130, an output unit 140, an input unit 150, a sensor unit 160, and a communication unit 170. It may include one or more configurations of

The memory unit 120 is configured to support manipulation of the electronic device 100 by storing various types of data (eg, various application programs, user data, operating systems, etc.). Examples of such data include instructions for any application program or method executed in the electronic device 100, pictures, videos, and the like.

The operating system (e.g. LINUX, UNIX, OS X, WINDOWS, Chrome, Symbian, WinCE, Windows Mobile, iOS, Android, Tizen, VxWorks, pSOS or other embedded operating systems) performs system tasks such as memory management, power management, etc. It may include various software components and/or drivers for controlling.

The application program may be various applications executed on an operating system. The application program includes, for example, a program implementing the character recognition and/or educational technology of the present invention.

The memory unit 120 may be implemented with any type of volatile or nonvolatile memory, or a combination of both, for example, SRAM (Static Random Access Memory), EEPROM (Electrically Erasable Programmable Read-Only Memory), EPROM (Erasable Programmable Read Only Memory), PROM (Programmable Read-Only Memory), ROM (Read-Only Memory), magnetic memory, flash memory, hard disk or optical disk may be implemented.

The power supply unit 130 is to supply power to each component of the electronic device 100, and may include other components for generating, managing, and distributing power.

The output unit 140 may include an audio output unit and a video output unit, and may be connected to the speaker 141 and the display 143, respectively.

The input unit 150 may be connected to an input module such as a touch sensor. The input unit 150 generates input data for the user to control the operation of the electronic device 100 . The input unit 130 may be configured as a touch member that senses a change in resistance, pressure, or capacitance, for example, a touch pad. At this time, the touch pad 151 may be overlapped in a layer form on the display 143 to form a 'touch screen' 153 . The touch screen 153 may detect a contact (touch) and movement of the touch using various touch technologies such as capacitive, resistive, infrared, and surface acoustic waves, proximity sensor technology, and the like. there is.

The touch screen 153 implemented by overlapping the touch pad 151 on the display 115 can simultaneously receive a plurality of touch signals. The touch screen 153 can detect contact signals generated by contact of a plurality of unique points of a letter block, which will be described later.

The sensor unit 160 is to provide evaluation of states in various aspects to the electronic device 100. For example, the sensor unit 160 is used to determine the on/off state of the electronic device 100 and the electronic device 100. 100 or changes in the position of components of the electronic device 100, contact between the user and the electronic device 100, orientation or acceleration/deceleration of the electronic device 100, and temperature change of the electronic device 100 can also be detected. can The sensor unit 160 may include a proximity sensor, and may detect the presence or absence of a nearby object in the absence of any physical contact. The sensor unit 160 may further include an optical sensor such as a CMOS or CCD image sensor for image application. In some embodiments, the sensor unit 160 may include an acceleration sensor, a gyro sensor, a magnetic sensor, a pressure sensor, or a temperature sensor.

The communication unit 170 is for smooth wired or wireless communication between the electronic device 100 and other devices, and the electronic device 100 is wireless based on communication standards such as WiFi, 2G, 3G, 4G, 5G or combinations thereof. can access the network. In one exemplary embodiment, the communication unit 170 may receive a broadcast signal or broadcast-related information from an external broadcast management system through a broadcast channel. In one exemplary embodiment, the communication unit 170 further includes a near field communication (NFC) module for activating short-range communication. For example, the NFC module may be implemented based on RFID technology, IrDA technology, UWB technology, Bluetooth (BT) technology, and other technologies.

The processing unit 110 is generally configured to control the overall operation and operation of the electronic device 100, such as display, data communication, camera operation, and recording operation. The processing unit 110 includes one or more processors 111 and executes all or part of the steps of the character recognition and/or training method disclosed in this specification by executing commands. The processing unit 110 may be configured to execute software components stored in the memory unit 120 . The processing unit 110 may control a module connected to the output unit 140 or the input unit 150 according to an application program stored in the memory unit 120, for example. Also, since the processing unit 110 includes one or a plurality of modules, interaction between the processing unit 110 and components can be smoothly performed.

In an exemplary embodiment, the electronic device 100 includes one or a plurality of Application Specific Integrated Circuits (ASICs), Digital Signal Processors (DSPs), Digital Signal Processing Devices (DSPDs), design Character recognition and / Alternatively, educational methods may be performed.

As an example, the electronic device 100 adopting the text recognition and/or education technology disclosed in this specification may be implemented by including a touch screen 153, a processing unit 110, and a memory unit 120.

2 is a schematic diagram for explaining character blocks to be recognized by the character recognition and/or educational technology disclosed in this specification.

Referring to FIG. 2, the plurality of consonant blocks 210 may be provided as three-dimensional blocks having the shape of consonant phonemes including consonants and vowels of Hangul (see FIG. 3), and consonant phonemes are all consonants and vowels. It may be included, only consonants may be included, or only vowels may be included. Each letter block 210 may include a block body 212 and unique points 214 formed on the bottom surface of the block body 212 . The block body 212 is provided to have a three-dimensional shape of a consonant or vowel of Hangul, and the unique points 214 and the block body 212 are the capacitance of the touch screen 153 of the electronic device 100 of FIG. It may be formed of a conductive material such as metal so that the number and location (coordinate information) of the unique points 214 can be recognized.

Unique points 214 formed in each consonant block 210 may be distributed and arranged at intervals of different patterns for each Korean consonant so that each consonant block 210 can be identified from other consonant blocks. In other words, the positions of the unique points 214 of each consonant block 210 may be set such that a set of distance values between the unique points 214 of each consonant block 210 is different for each Korean consonant. As the number of unique points 214 formed in each consonant block 210 increases, the amount of data to be processed increases, which can be inefficient, so four or five unique points 214 in each consonant block 210 It is preferred that this is provided.

In the embodiment of the consonant blocks shown in FIG. 2, for example, the consonants 'd', 'j', and 'ch' are provided with five unique points 214, and the remaining consonants and vowels Four unique points 214 are provided.

Among the plurality of consonant blocks 210, some consonants or vowels having a symmetrical form (rotational symmetry or point symmetry) (for example, 'a/b', 'a/sh', 'ㅑ/ㅕ', 'ㅣ/ㅡ' , 'ㅗ/TT', 'ㅛ/ㅠ') may be used overlapping with each other. At this time, consonants and/or vowels in symmetrical form can be distinguished from each other based on the orientation in which the consonant blocks 210 are disposed on the touch screen 153, which will be described later.

Referring to FIG. 3, a Korean consonant block according to an embodiment of the present invention will be described in detail. 3A and 3B are a perspective view and a plan view of a Korean consonant 'c' consonant block. The letter block 210 includes unique points 214 formed on the block body 212 and one surface (bottom surface) 213 thereof. The unique points 214 of each letter block 210 can be designed so that their lower end positions are elevated on the same plane so that the unique points 214 of the letter blocks 210 can be in contact with the touch screen 153 at the same time. there is. For example, the bottom surface 213 of the character block 210 may be flat and the unique points 214 may have the same height.

As an example, the block body 212 is so that a user, for example, an infant, can easily hold it and when the electronic device 100 touches the unique points 214 of the letter block 210, the hand of the electronic device 100 Steps may be provided to prevent contact with the touch screen 153 . For example, the block body 212 may include an upper body 211a held by a user and a lower body 211b connected to the upper body 211a and having a wider width. At this time, unique points 214 are provided on the bottom surface 213 of the lower body 211b.

The unique points 214 may be formed by distributingly disposed on the bottom surface 213 of the block body 212 and protruding outward from the lower body 211a. The block body 212 and unique points 214 may be formed of a conductive material and electrically connected to each other. Accordingly, when the user grips the letter block 210 and touches the touch screen 153 of the electronic device 100, the user's electric charge (static electricity) is transferred to the touch screen 153 side through the unique points 214 and touch screen ( 153) can recognize the number and location (coordinates) of the unique points 214 of the letter block 210.

In one embodiment, one or more of the character blocks 210, for example, the character block 210 having a Korean consonant shape such as 'T' or 'P', has a non-conductive balance point on the bottom surface. It can be done, and this will be described with reference to FIG. 4 . 4 shows a consonant block for the Korean consonant 'P' in one embodiment of the present invention. As shown in FIG. 4 , the mother block 210 may include a non-conductive balance point 216 on its bottom surface 213 .

The balance point 216 is non-conductive, so even if the letter block 210 contacts the touch screen 153, it is not recognized, and the block body 212 induces the unique points 214 to uniformly contact the touch screen 153. ) It may protrude from the bottom surface 213 of. The balance point 216 may be formed at substantially the same height as the unique points 214 .

5 illustrates a usage environment of the electronic device 100 and the letter block 210.

The electronic device 100 may be configured to include a touch screen 153 on the front side. However, application of the technology disclosed in this specification is not limited to a touch screen implemented to be embedded in an electronic device, but may also be applied to a touch screen implemented as a separate device and operated in connection with an electronic device.

A consonant block 210 provided as a three-dimensional block having the shape of Korean consonant phonemes may be disposed on the touch screen 153 . Unique points made of a conductive material are formed on the bottom surface of the letter block 210, and the unique points are formed on the touch screen 153 when the letter block 210 is placed on the touch screen 153. contact, and the touch screen 153 may sense the contact of the unique points 214 of the letter block 210 based on capacitance.

When a user such as an infant or an elderly person touches the letter block 210 to the touch screen 153 while holding the letter block 210 by hand, the charge of the human body through the block body 212 and the unique points 214 ( Static electricity) is transferred to the touch screen 153, and a change in capacitance is recognized by the touch screen 153, so that contact positions of the unique points 214 can be recognized.

When the unique points 214 of the letter blocks 210 contact the touch screen 153, the electronic device 100 may recognize the contacted letter blocks 210 based on the distances between the unique points 214. .

6 is a flowchart of a method for recognizing a parental block according to an embodiment of the present invention.

Referring to FIG. 6 , in the method of recognizing a letter block according to an embodiment of the present invention, the steps (S10) of detecting the positions (coordinates) of the unique points of the letter block in contact with the touch screen, the distance between the detected unique points It includes obtaining information (S20) and comparing and determining the obtained distance information between unique points and reference distance information (30).

In step S10, when a user (eg, infants, the elderly, etc.) holds the letter block 210 and contacts the touch screen 153 of the electronic device 100 (see FIG. 5), the electronic device 100 measures the capacitance. Based on this, it is possible to detect the contact positions (coordinates) and the number of unique points 214 of the letter block 210 in contact with the touch screen 153 on the touch screen 153. When the letter block 210 contacts the touch screen 153, the static electricity of the human body is transmitted to the touch screen 153 through the block body 212 and the unique points 214, and the capacitance by the touch screen 153 Based on the change in , it is possible to detect the contact position and number of unique points 214 .

In step S20, distance values 240 between the unique points 214 from the contact positions of the unique points 214 of the detected letter block 210, for example, distance values between the unique points by all combinations are obtained. . 7 is a diagram for explaining step S20. Referring to FIG. 7, the consonant block 210 for the Korean consonant 'ㅅ' obtains six distance values (D1 to D6) between four unique points (214a to 214d), and in the drawing, the acquired distance values are used as lengths. shown On the other hand, since the consonant blocks 100 for the Korean consonants 'ㄹ', 'ㅅ', and 'Ch' have 5 unique points (see FIG. 2), all of the 6 unique points when these consonant blocks contact the touch screen Ten distance values are obtained by combination.

In the next step S30, the contacted child block is confirmed (recognized) by comparing the distance information obtained in step S20 with the reference distance information. 8 is a diagram explaining reference distance information 250 of a parent block. Referring to FIG. 8, the reference distance information 250 is a set of reference distance information of each child block, and the reference distance information of each child block is unique distance values by all combinations of unique points (distance values in the drawing). are indicated by their corresponding lengths). Since each letter block has unique points arranged in a unique way, each letter block has unique distance values between unique points. Therefore, by comparing the obtained distance information 240 with the reference distance information 250, it is possible to accurately distinguish and determine the character block contacting the touch screen 153.

Referring to FIG. 9, the method for manufacturing a letter block according to the present invention will be described.

Referring to FIG. 9 , the method for manufacturing a letter block of the present invention includes preparing a raw material (S100) and injecting the prepared raw material into a mold (molding mold) corresponding to the letter block (S200).

In step S100, a raw material is provided as a conductive material. The conductive material is prepared by mixing conductive carbon (graphite) and silicone resin, for example.

The mold has an internal cavity corresponding to the parent block described above. For example, the mold may include an upper mold and a lower mold, and an inner cavity is defined at a combination of the upper mold and the lower mold.

It should be understood that the above embodiments are presented to aid understanding of the present invention, do not limit the scope of the present invention, and various deformable embodiments also fall within the scope of the present invention. The scope of protection of the present invention should be determined by the technical spirit of the claims, and the scope of protection of the present invention is not limited to the literal description of the claims themselves, but actually extends to inventions of equal scope of technical value. It should be understood that

Claims (6)

delete delete A set of Hangul consonant blocks contacted and recognized by the touch screen of an electronic device, each Hangul consonant block,
a conductive consonant block body corresponding to the shape of consonant phonemes including consonants and vowels; And,
The conductive letter block body includes 4 or 5 conductive unique points electrically connected to the Hangul letter block body on the bottom surface,
Two of the unique points are spaced apart from each other in the horizontal or vertical direction of the bottom surface of the Korean alphabet block to define an orientation reference line used to determine the direction in which the Korean alphabet block contacts the touch screen,
Among the unique points, the remaining unique points, except for the two unique points defining the alignment reference line, are arranged differently with respect to the alignment reference line by the two unique points, so that the Hangul consonant blocks can be distinguished.
A set of Korean alphabet blocks. delete delete According to claim 3,
The mother block body includes a lower body having a bottom surface provided with the unique points and an upper body that is continuous with the lower body and has a narrower width than the lower body, and the lower body and the upper body form a stepped structure. doing,
A set of Korean alphabet blocks.

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