Abstract: A capacitive sensor comprises patterned electrodes and printed wires of conductive material integrated with sensing circuits on flexible circuit substrates. The flexible circuit substrates are fingered or otherwise elongated to distribute sensing points to the limbs in a toy doll or animal, or squares on a board game. Such sensing points can detect the presence of a finger even though actual contact is not made by measuring the proportions and changes in stray capacitance attaching to the various electrodes. Touch sensors are therefore possible even when the capacitor sensor's sensing points are covered by a doll's plastic skin or a plush animal's fur. Including an interlayer of open cell foam under the flexible circuit substrate further implements a pressure sensor because applied pressures will deform the geometries of the capacitor electrodes and dielectrics enough to produce a measurable change in capacitance.

Abstract: A toy and software application accessory extends the distinguishing play experience of a particular toy to a digital play experience on personal digital assistant, personal navigation device, or other electronic device like an iPod or iphone with an accelerometer, speaker, and a touch-sensitive display screen. The software application accessory creates a digital play experience or video game on the electronic device that presents avatars, dialog, and backgrounds that convincingly accessorize the physical toy. Wireless connectivity to a PC and the Internet allows the toy or the electronic device to download updates, modifications, and enhancements to its basic program. New personalities can be downloaded that change the toy play experience, and extend the play life of the toy by introducing new and creative play experiences. A personality accessory kit includes the new personalities, clothes, props, and other matching accessories.

Abstract: Toy design methods break down the desired behavior of an electro-mechanical toy into unique states represented with electronics and/or mechanical modeling. The toy will exist in such rest state until some external event acts to trigger a state change in one or more of the parts. Any event can be defined at an appropriate user, environmental, or sensory input to can act as a trigger for the toy to react with some predefined behavior. Each of several physical toy states can be uniquely represented with an electronic circuit register. A multi-bit register status at any one particular instant directly represents the entire state the toy is in, and is quick and simple to inspect and act on. State changes triggered by input stimuli cause a change in the register bits reflecting the changing conditions of the toy.