Abstract: Teaching and amusement apparatus includes a self-contained electronic pen which is used in conjunction with specially printed material to provide an interactive system, e.g. in the form of a worksheet or book having question and answer areas. The pen senses differences, not visually discernable, in the infra-red radiation reflectivities of the answer areas to indicate audibly and visually whether a correct or incorrect answer has been selected. The pen operates in a programming mode wherein a program for the particular game to be played is loaded into the apparatus by sensing the reflectivities of areas on the worksheet or book and then is switched automatically into an active mode wherein correct and incorrect answers are sensed. The pen confirms to the user that the program has been correctly loaded into the apparatus.

Abstract: Drawing boards and drawing instruments for use therewith. The surface of the board (1) has a set of parallel-running, evenly spaced magnetic poles (2) across it. Each drawing instrument has a cylinder (10) with similar parallel magnetic poles running essentially axially along it. The cylinder is freely rotatably mounted (12) and preferably held a little bit away from the board surface. The cylinder (10) preferentially orientates with its magnetic poles aligned with those (2) on the board surface. This orientation can be accurately maintained across the entire surface of the board without the use of cumbersome mechanical arrangements to ensure alignment of drawing instruments. When not required for use, the drawing instrument may simply be removed from the surface of the board. A ruler/protractor device (3) and a carriage bearing a pair of rules set at right angles are described.

Abstract: Teaching or amusement apparatus consists of a substrate bearing printed intelligence and a detector pen or unit for use therewith. The detector pen discriminates between areas on the printed substrate by means not visible to the naked eye e.g. by a difference in magnetic properties, infrared reflective properties or capacitative properties of different parts of the printing. Depending on the type of printing and the degree of complexity of detection, a wide variety of games and teaching aids may be produced using this basic approach. A typical example is a quiz game where a question may be followed by five printed answers, only one of which is correct, that correct one being printed in a detectably different way from the others.