Pop! Click! Snap! Squaregles® magnetic frames, panels, bridge clips, and Oggs™, are all about building, imagination, problem-solving, and Getting lost in play®. Award-winning, STEAM(1) toy, Squaregles® is also a patented invention.
The US utility patent, US10918963B2, titled Magnetic building tiles, granted to Noah Ornstein and Joseph Kelley, on February 16, 2021, is one of a dozen patents, reciting the Squaregles® invention. Specifically, this patent discloses all the various toy-building components of the Squaregles® invention, in 95 patent figure sheets, the 15-page description of their endless combinations, and 44 claims.
Compared to the prior art of toy building kits that might replicate a particular model, the Squaregles® toy building kits are designed to combine and recombine endlessly, according to a child’s fantasy and imagination-at-play. Furthermore, Squaregles® are not only reconfigurable, the building kits are also customizable and alterable, according to each child’s creativity. Thus, for example, the building tiles not only connect and disconnect, using magnets, clips or other means, the tile frames are also connectable to varying building elements. Similarly, tile panels can also be colored, decorated and graphically altered.
Below, the patent Figure 2 depicts an exploded square magnetic tile 10, comprising a tile frame 12 and an exploded tile panel 18 with two tile panel walls, 26 and 28. The tile frame 12, in Figure 2, is shown comprising two portions, 14 and 16, which may be connected together, using the connection mechanism 22. A releasable, snap-fit, magnetic connection 22, comprising two joint portions, 32 and 34, that are designed to mate. The snap-fit connection mechanism 22 of the two tile frame portions, 14 and 16, enables to securely bring a tile panel 18, together with a tile frame 12. Conversably, the snap-fit magnetic connection 22 is also releasable, so that tile panels are removable and exchangeable, when both portions of the tile frame, 14 and 16, are pulled apart.
The Figure 2 further depicts a series of brick-shaped magnets 20, inserted inside the sides of the tile frame 12. The inserted magnets 20 enable one side of a magnetic tile 10 to connect with the side of another magnetic tile 10, also square, or of triangular shape. Within the sides of the tile frame portions, 14 and 16, the magnets 20 might otherwise have different cylindrical or spherical shapes, so that they are able to rotate, in view of adjusting their polarity, when in contact with the magnets of other building tiles.
A building system includes a plurality of building tiles and / or connectors that are magnetically and releasably connectable to one another. The magnetic building tiles are comprised of a tile frame and a tile panel. The tile frame, by one approach, is comprised of two connectable frame portions or elements having magnets embedded therein. The first and second frame elements are connectable to one another through a snap, clip, or another similar connection mechanism. The first and second frame elements are connectable around or into the tile panel, which is removable from the magnetic building tile. The tile panel or the tile frame has a channel into which the other of the tile panel or tile frame extends to secure the two pieces together. In another approach, the tile frame is a single element and the tile panel may snap or attach thereto, such as, for example, through fasteners or friction. [Abstract US10918963B2]
Note
(1) The Acronym STEAM indicates a toy that requires the application of Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Math, while building.
Squaregles® (website)
https://squaregles.com/
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