US3514103A

US3514103A - Single occupant seesaws

Info

Publication number: US3514103A
Application number: US616846A
Authority: US
Inventors: Jerry Lieberman
Original assignee: LIEBERMANN JERRY
Current assignee: LIEBERMANN JERRY
Priority date: 1967-02-17
Filing date: 1967-02-17
Publication date: 1970-05-26
Anticipated expiration: 1987-05-26

Description

y 6, 1970 .1. LIEBERMAN 3,514,103

SINGLE OCCUPAN'I SEESAWS Filed Feb. 17, 1967 Z Sheets-Sheet 1 INVENTOR- JERRY LIE BERMAN y 1970 J. LIEBERMAN 3,514,103

SINGLE occumm SEESAWS Filed Feb. 1'7, 196? 2 Sheets-Sheet 2 INVENTOR= JERRY LIEBERMAN I Bwdg g.

United States Patent Office 3,514,103 Patented May 26, 1970 3,514,103 SINGLE OCCUPANT SEESAWS Jerry Lieberman, 1364 Lexington Ave., New York, N.Y. 10028 Filed Feb. 17, 1967, Ser. No. 616,846 Int. Cl. A63g 11/00 US. Cl. 272-55 10 Claims ABSTRACT OF THE DISCLOSURE A seesaw for use by a single occupant seated on the outer end portion of a resiliently flexible rod, the inner end portion of which is anchored in a support. The rod is inclined in the direction of the occupant and its resilient flexibility permits controlled oscillation in a vertical plane. A resiliently yieldable fulcrum is provided intermediate the ends of the rod and the support and the fulcrum are adjustable so that the angle of inclination of the rod may be varied.

This invention relates to new and useful improvements in playground equipment, and in particular the invention concerns itself with a seesaw which is adapted for use by a single occupant, as distinguished from a double'ended seesaw wherein two occupants are disposed at opposite sides of an intermediate fulcrum.

The principal object of the invention is to provide a single occupant seesaw which is very simple but durable in construction and which lends itself to convenient and economical manufacture, so that it may be readily placed at the disposal of children in homes, playgrounds, and the like. As such, the seesaw consists essentially of a single, resiliently flexible rod, preferably made of glass fibers bonded together by resin, one end portion of the rod being anchored in a support while its other end portion carries the occupants seat. The rod is inclined in the direction of the occupant and its resilient flexibility permits a controlled oscillation in a vertical plane.

An important feature of the invention resides in the provision of means for varying the angle of inclination of the rod and, consequently, the height of the occupants seat above the ground or floor when the seesaw is at rest, so that the device may be easily adjusted to accommodate children of different ages.

With the foregoing more important object and feature in view and such other objects and features as may become apparent as this specification proceeds, the invention will be understood from the following description taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, wherein like characters of reference are used to designate like parts, and wherein:

FIG. 1 is a side elevational view showing one embodiment of a single occupant seesaw in accordance with the invention;

FIG. 2 is a top plan view thereof;

FIG. 3 is an enlarged, fragmentary sectional view, taken substantially in the plane of the line 3-3 in FIG. 2;

FIG. 4 is a view, similar to that in FIG. 3, but showing a modified arrangement;

FIG. 5 is a perspective view of the fulcrum used in the embodiment of FIGS. 1 and 2;

FIG. 6 is an enlarged cross-sectional view. taken substantially in the plane of the line 66 in FIG. 1;

FIG. 7 is a view, partly in side elevation and partly in section, showing a modified embodiment of the fulcrum;

FIG. 8 is a fragmentary view taken in the direction of the arrow Sin FIG. 7;

FIG. 9 is a fragmentary side elevational view of another modified embodiment of the invention;

FIG. 10 is a cross-sectional view, taken substantially in the plane of the line 1010 in FIG. 9;

FIG. 11 is a fragmentary side elevational view of another modified embodiment; and

FIG. 12 is a cross-sectional view, taken substantially in the plane of the line 12--12 in FIG. 11.

Referring now to the accompanying drawings in detail, attention is first directed to FIGS. 1, 2, 3, 5 and 6 which illustrate one embodiment of the single occupant seesaw in accordance with the invention. The same is designated generally by the reference numeral 21 and comprises a support 22 for an inclined, resiliently flexible rod 23 which extends outwardly and upwardly from the support and is provided on its outer end portion with an occupants seat 24.

The support 22 consists of a base 25 which is suitably anchored to the ground or floor 26, and a tubular socket 27 which is connected to the base 25 by a horizontal pivot pin 28 for movement of the socket in a vertical plane. The axis of the socket 27 is inclined and the lower or inner end portion of the rod 23 is secured in the socket, as by an adhesive, press-fitting, or any other suitable means. The rod 23, as already stated, is resiliently flexible and is preferably formed from longitudinally extending glass fibers bonded together by a resin, as in a material commercially known as Fiberglas. The seat 24 may be made of the same material, and while in the drawings the seat is shown as being cylindrical with the outer end portion of the rod 23 extending axially thereinto, it is to be understood that the seat may be of any desired shape.

A fulcrum 29 is provided to engage the intermediate portion of the rod 23 at a point adjacent but spaced from the socket 27. The fulcrum consists of a block of material which preferably possesses a certain amount of resilient yieldability, such as hard rubber, or the like, the block having a ground or floor engaging base portion 30 and a rounded upper portion 31 on which the rod 23 may rest. To prevent longitudinal and lateral displacement of the fulcrum block, a horizontal bar 32 may be extended through the base portion 30* with downturned pointed extremities 33 of the bar penetrating into the ground or grippingly engaging the floor, as the case may be.

It will be apparent that when an occupant takes his or her position on the seat 24, the resilient flexibility of the rod 23 will permit the rod to oscillate in a vertical plane, outwardly from the point where the rod is engaged by the fulcrum 29, thus providing the desired seesaw action for the single occupant. Since the fulcrum 29 may be manually moved closer to or further away from the support 22, the point of contact of the fulcrum with the rod 23 may be longitudinally adjusted, so that control is obtained over the degree of resiliency of the rod and its frequency and amplitude of oscillation, under a given weight and rocking effort of the occupant. It will be also noted that by manually moving the fulcrum 29 toward or away from the support '22, the angle of inclination of the rod 23 may be respectively increased or decreased, thus correspondingly raising or lowering the height of the seat 24 above the ground or floor 26 so that the seesaw may readily accommodate children of different sizes. Of course, as the angle of inclination of the rod 23 is changed, the rod socket 27 automatically adjusts itself by virtue of its pivotal connection 28 to the fixed base 25 of the support 22. This pivotal connection also permits the socket to move slightly downwardly and upwardly as the oscillations of the rod 23 cause the resiliently yieldable fulcrum block to be alternately compressed and expanded.

As already indicated, the manual adjustment of the fulcrum 29 toward or away fromthe support 22 may be made either for the purpose of oscillation control or for the purpose of changing the seat height, but in either event the two purposes are more-or-less inter-relatedin that an adjustment to lower the seat for a small child inherently produces a desired decrease in the amplitude of oscillation, since the fulcrum has to be moved further away from the support. Conversely, by moving the fulcrum closer to the support so as to raise the seat height for a larger child, a greater amplitude of oscillation is inherently permitted.

FIG. 4 shows a slight modification wherein the inner or lower end portion of the rod 23 is mounted in the socket 27 by means of a pair of resilient bushings 34 of rubber, or the like, rather than directly in the bore of the socket as in FIG. 3.

FIGS. 7 and 8 illustrate a modified fulcrum 35 which may be used in place of the fulcrum 29. The fulcrum 35 comprises a bracket 36 positionable on the ground or floor, and provided in its upper portion with an opening 37 in which is mounted a tubular sleeve 38 of resilient material such as rubber, or the like. The rod 23 extends through and is frictionally engaged by the sleeve 38, whereby the fulcrum may remain in a selected position along the length of the rod 23 without necessarily securing the bracket 36 to the ground or floor. However, the fulcrum 35 may be slid along the rod 23 as indicated at 39 for purposes of either or both, oscillation control and seat height adjustment, as already described in connection with the fulcrum 29. The resilient sleeve 38 is sufficiently yieldable to accommodate changes in the angle of inclination of the rod 23 as the fulcrum is moved toward or away from the rod support.

FIGS. 9 and show another modified embodiment of the fulcrum, which in this instance comprises a ring or annulus 40 bonded or otherwise secured as at 41 to the underside of the rod 23, with the axis of the ring extending transversely of the rod axis. The ring 40 is resiliently yieldable and may conveniently be made of Fiberglas material. In any event, while serving in the manner of a fulcrum, the resilient yieldability of the ring 40 permits it to become alternately compressed and expanded to a greater degree than the aforementioned fulcrum 29 of solid, hard rubber, or the aforementioned rubber sleeve 38. Thus, while the oscillation takes place mostly in the outer portion of the rod 23 beyond the ring 40, some oscillation also occurs at the inner portion of the rod inwardly of the ring and at the socket 27 which moves about the pivot pin 28.

FIGS. 11 and 12 show another type of fulcrum 48 for the rod 23, which may be used in conjunction with the support 22. Here the fulcrum 48 comprises a resilient sleeve 49 which encircles the rod 23 in the manner of the aforementioned sleeve 38, the sleeve 49 being held in an eye 50 having a screw 51 secured thereto. The screw 51 constitutes a component of a turnbuckle unit which also includes a turnbuckle member 52 and a second screw 53 of opposite hand relative to the screw '51, the screw 53 being fixed to a base 54. Thus, when the member 52 is turned, the turnbuckle unit is either extended or retracted to correspondingly increase or decrease the angle of inclination of the rod 23. Here again, the sleeve 49 frictionally engages the rod 23, but the fulcrum may be manually slid along the rod toward or away from the support 22 for purposes of oscillation control, although in this embodiment the seat height adjustment may be made merely by the turnbuckle unit. As will be noted, radially projecting pins 55 are provided on the turnbuckle member 52 to facilitate turning the same.

While in the foregoing there have been described and 4 shown the preferred embodiments of the invention, various modifications may become apparent to those skilled in the art to which the invention relates. Accordingly, it is not desired to limit the invention to this disclosure.

What is claimed as new is:

1. A single occupant seesaw comprising in combination, a base resting on a supporting surface, a horizontal pivot on said base, a tubular member having one end thereof mounted on said pivot for movement of the tubular member in a vertical plane, said tubular member defining a cylindrical socket, a resiliently flexible cylindrical rod having one end portion thereof secured in said socket and projecting outwardly and upwardly therefrom, an

' occupants seat carried by the outer end portion of said rod, and a fulcrum resting on the supporting surface at a point spaced from said base, said fulcrum engaging an intermediate portion of said rod at a point between said socket and said seat, and the resiliency of said rod being such as to permit substantial vertical oscillation of the seat-carrying rod portion outwardly beyond said fulcrum.

2. The device as defined in claim 1 together with means carried by said fulcrum for anchoring the same to the supporting surface.

3. The device as defined in claim 1 wherein said fulcrum comprises a solid block of elastomeric material engaging the underside of said rod.

4. The device as defined in claim 1 wherein said fulcrum comprises a resiliently deformable annular member disposed in a vertical plane and engaging the underside of said rod.

5. The device as defined in claim 1 wherein said fulcrum comprises a bracket formed with an aperture, and a tubular sleeve of elastomeric material mounted in the aperture of said bracket, said rod extending through said sleeve.

6. The device as defined in claim 1 wherein said fulcrum comprises a base plate having a screw thereon, an eye encircling said rod and provided with a second screw in axial alignment with the screw on the base plate, and a turnbuckle operatively connecting said screws together to effect vertical adjustment of said eye relative to the base plate.

7. The device as defined in claim 1 wherein said rod is progressively smaller in cross-section from said support socket toward said seat.

8. The device as defined in claim 1 wherein said fulcrum is resiliently yieldable.

9. The device as defined in claim 1 wherein said fulcrum is adjustable on the supporting surface longitudinally of said rod toward and away from said socket.

10. The device as defined in claim 1 wherein said fulcrum is adjustable upwardly and downwardly.

References Cited UNITED STATES PATENTS 1,608,821 11/1926 Sherrod 27252 1,807,938 6/1931 Shoemaker 27252 1,890,699 12/1932 Shoemaker 27252 X 2,129,176 9/1938 Holman 272-1 2,440,172 4/ 1948 Gibbons 272-52 2,638,345 5/1953 Norvell 27233 2,688,483 9/1954 Mugler 27252 X 2,726,085 12/1955 Brand 272.--30 3,204,953 1952 Ahrens 27252 3,246,893 1965 Boggild et a1. 27265 X ANTON O. OECHSLE, Primary Examiner A. W. KRAMER, Assistant Examiner