CUBE PIECE USING SPHERICAL MAGNETS

Description

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

The present application is a continuation of International Patent Application No. PCT/KR2025/016013, filed on Oct. 13, 2025, which is based upon and claims the benefit of priority to Korean Patent Application No. 10-2024-0186403 filed on Dec. 13, 2024. The disclosures of the above-listed applications are hereby incorporated by reference herein in their entirety.

BACKGROUND

Embodiments of the present disclosure described herein relate to a cube piece using spherical magnets, and more particularly, relate to a cube piece using spherical magnets that improves creativity by allowing cube pieces to be coupled to each other at positions, at which half of contact surfaces are misaligned, and thus combining the cube pieces in various forms, and improves productivity by facilitating assembly of the magnets.

Generally, a block toy refers to a toy for developing the intelligence of infants or children, and refers to an assembly type toy, in which a plurality of blocks having various shapes are assembled to create an arbitrary structure.

Such an assembly type block toy may be assembled into structures of various shapes depending on a child's imagination, and the assembled structure may be disassembled and reassembled into another structure to be used repeatedly, so that the toy may be assembled in various ways depending on the child's imagination, thereby stimulating creativity and imagination, increasing brain activity, and contributing to the improvement of intelligence.

A representative example of such an assembly type block toy is a soma cube.

The soma cube is a three-dimensional puzzle that was developed by Piet Hein during Werner Heisenberg's quantum mechanics lecture in 1933, and as illustrated in FIGS. 1A, 1B, and 1C, the cube includes cube pieces formed of cubic bodies and was designed to be assembled into various geometric shapes depending on disposition of the cube pieces.

Such a soma cube contributes to the development of creativity and sensibility by enabling new ideas and expressions using limited cube pieces, helps to understand transformations and symmetries of figures, familiarizes users with geometric plane figures, develops spatial perception and problem-solving ability, and also contributes to the development of logical ability of the left brain and artistic ability of the right brain by using both hands, and further enhances the ability to simplify and express objects and the ability to express objects viewed from various angles through delicate observation.

To form various shapes with the soma cube as described above, the cube pieces have to be fixed at specific positions, for example, have to be stacked on upper surfaces of other cube pieces or fixed to side surfaces thereof, and an example of fixing the cube pieces at the specific positions is a cube, in which projections and fitting recesses, into which the projections are fitted, are formed on surfaces, on a plurality of cube pieces contact each other.

According to such cube pieces using the projections and the fitting recesses, because considerable force is required to fit and remove the projections into and from the fitting recesses during assembly, it is difficult for children or infants with weak strength to assemble and disassemble the cube pieces, and although the projections have to be inserted into exact positions of the fitting recesses, it is difficult for infants to do so, and thus, fail to obtain desired play effects.

Another example for coupling between the cube pieces is, as illustrated in FIG. 2, a cube, in which cube pieces each including a housing 10 that is formed as a hexahedral body and has support recesses 12 formed at eight inner corners of the hexahedral body, respectively, and magnets 20 that are formed as cubic bodies and inserted into the support recesses 12 formed at the eight inner corners inside the housing 10, respectively, so that the cube pieces are coupled to each other by magnetic force.

However, conventional cube pieces using the cubic magnets are more convenient to use compared to those using projections and fitting recesses because they are coupled by magnetic force, but because the cubic magnets are used, the magnets of the adjacent cube pieces are aligned such that surfaces thereof are joined to each other and are coupled together when adjacent cube pieces are coupled to each other, so that the cube pieces may only be coupled such that the surfaces are completely closely attached to each other, and it is impossible to couple the surfaces such that they half-overlap each other, thereby limiting the formation of various shapes.

SUMMARY

Embodiments of the present disclosure provide a cube piece using spherical magnets, in which cube pieces are formed by disposing spherical magnets at eight corners of hexahedral bodies, so that when the cube pieces are coupled, the magnets are brought into point contact with each other and magnetic force is uniformly generated, thereby allowing the cube pieces to be coupled such that only half of contact surfaces between the cube pieces overlap each other, and thus enabling various shapes to be formed by using the cube to improve creativity.

Embodiments of the present disclosure provide a cube piece using spherical magnets, which includes magnet insertion guides that allow magnets to be easily inserted into housings to improve productivity, and in which the magnets are disposed at accurate positions to perform desired operations.

An aspect of the present disclosure provides a cube piece using spherical magnets, including a housing, in which support recesses are formed at eight corners of an interior of a hexahedral body, respectively, and spherical magnets inserted into the eight support recesses of the housing, respectively, wherein the housing includes a main housing formed as a cubic body having one side surface opened, the main housing having rectangular first support recesses at four corners of an inner peripheral surface opposite to the opened surface, the first support recesses being opened in a direction of the opened surface and formed to correspond to dimensions of the spherical magnets, a support body inserted into an interior of the main housing to block opening parts of the first support recesses to restrain magnets disposed inside the first support recesses, the support body having rectangular second support recesses formed at four corners of the housing corresponding to the opened surface, the second support recesses being opened toward the opened surface together with the main housing, and a portion between the first support recesses and the second support recesses being surface-joined to the main housing, and a cover housing configured to block the opened surface of the main housing to restrain magnets located in the second support recesses, and the second support recesses are formed such that surfaces thereof contacting the main housing are opened to form rectangular recesses contacting an inner peripheral surface of the main housing and opened toward the cover housing side, and wherein the cube piece using the spherical magnets includes a guide for inserting the magnets into the support recesses formed at the four corners of the inner peripheral surface of the housing having one side opened, and the guide includes a body formed to be inserted into an interior of the housing, guide grooves formed at four corners of the body to guide the magnets into the support recesses, and a handle protruding from one side surface of the body.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE FIGURES

The above and other objects and features will become apparent from the following description with reference to the following figures, wherein like reference numerals refer to like parts throughout the various figures unless otherwise specified, and wherein:

FIGS. 1A to 1C are views illustrating examples of use of conventional cube pieces;

FIG. 2 is a diagram illustrating a conventional cube piece using cubic magnets;

FIG. 3 is a diagram illustrating cube pieces using spherical magnets according to the present disclosure;

FIG. 4 is a view illustrating configurations of cube pieces using spherical magnets according to an embodiment of the present disclosure;

FIG. 5 is a view illustrating a disposition of magnets when cube pieces are coupled to each other according to an embodiment of the present disclosure;

FIGS. 6A and 6B are views illustrating an example of coupling of conventional cube pieces using magnets; and

FIG. 7 is a view illustrating configurations of cube pieces using spherical magnets according to another embodiment of the present disclosure.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Hereinafter, embodiments of the present disclosure will be described with reference to the accompanying drawings.

As illustrated in FIG. 3, a cube piece using spherical magnets according to the present disclosure includes a housing 100 that is formed as a hexahedral body and that has rectangular support recesses formed at eight inner corners, respectively, and spherical magnets 200 that are inserted into the support recesses formed at the eight inner corners in an interior of the housing 100.

An embodiment of the cube piece using the spherical magnets described above will be described with reference to FIG. 4.

The housing 100 includes a main housing 110 that is formed as a cubic body having one side surface opened, and that has first support recesses 112 formed at four corners of an inner peripheral surface that is opposite to the opened surface, respectively; a support body 120 that is inserted into an inside of the main housing 110 to block the first support recesses 112 to restrain magnets 210 (hereinafter, referred to as “first magnets”) disposed inside the first support recesses 112, and that has second support recesses 122 formed at four corners of the opened surface, respectively; and a cover housing 130 that blocks the opened surface of the main housing 110 to restrain magnets 220 (hereinafter, referred to as “second magnets”) located in the second support recesses 122.

In the main housing 110, reinforcing bars 114 for reinforcing a strength of wall surfaces while guiding insertion of the support body 120 and a guide 300 to be described later are formed integrally on the respective surfaces, and on the surfaces, in which the first support recesses 112 are formed, the reinforcing bars 114 are formed in a cross shape.

Furthermore, the first support recesses 112 are defined by support walls 116 that protrude from side surfaces of the main housing 110, and a diameter thereof is formed to be slightly greater than a diameter of the magnets.

Surfaces of the support body 120, which contact the first support recesses 112 are formed to be flat and are positioned on wall surfaces that define the first support recesses 112, guide grooves 124, by which the reinforcing bars 114 are guided, are formed on four side surfaces thereof, the second support recesses 122 are formed at four corners of a side surface of an opening part of the main housing 110, and surfaces of the second support recesses 122, which contact the main housing 110, are formed to be opened to define rectangular recesses each having an one opened side while contacting the inner peripheral surface of the main housing 110.

In addition, the surfaces that contact the main housing 110 may also be formed to be closed.

Furthermore, the support body 120 has a hollow part 128 formed at a center thereof to reduce weight, save material, and guide a position when the cover housing 130 is coupled.

The cover housing 130 is coupled to the main housing 110 to fix positions of the support body 120 and the magnets 210 and 220, and to prevent leftward and rightward movement of the cover housing 130 while reinforcing strength, a fixing part 138 is formed in a specific shape on an inner peripheral surface of the cover housing 130 to be inserted into a hollow part 128 such that the cover housing 130 is not moved.

The fixing part 138 is formed such that fixing projections 138b protrude to four sides of a central pillar 138a, as illustrated in FIG. 4, and the central pillar is formed in a rectangular shape or a circular shape.

Meanwhile, in the above, the first support recesses 112 and the second support recesses 122 are formed in dimensions that schematically divide one corner of the main housing 110 into four parts, and the first magnets 210 and the second magnets 220 are formed in dimensions corresponding to or slightly smaller than the interiors of the first support recesses 112 and the second support recesses 122.

Accordingly, as illustrated in FIG. 5, because a plurality of magnets 200 of a first cube piece A and a plurality of magnets 200 of other cube pieces B and C are disposed at substantially the same interval in a process of bringing and coupling the plurality of cube pieces together, the magnets 200 are formed to be spherical, and N-poles and S-poles of the spherical magnets are located in only one direction in a diameter direction of a sphere to be easily rotated, the spherical magnets are rotated according to an attractive force between the magnets, and then the rotated state is stably maintained, so that the plurality of cube pieces may overlap each other while being maintained in a state of half overlapping.

In FIG. 5, a cube piece C is in a completed assembled state.

However, because a plurality of symmetrical surfaces have polarities when conventional hexahedral magnets are used, as illustrated in FIG. 6A, the magnets 20 are in a state, in which they stands up in a diagonal direction in a state, in which the cube pieces half-overlap each other, and this causes weak structural stability, and as illustrated in the arrow of FIG. 6B, because the state is converted to a stable state, that is, a posture for bringing the magnets 20 and the housing 10 into surface contact even though a slight force is applied, the positions thereof cannot be maintained, and as in FIG. 6B, the surfaces are moved to and fixed to positions, at which they completely overlap each other, by attractive forces between adjacent magnets.

Meanwhile, the cube piece using the spherical magnets further includes the guide 300 for inserting the first magnets 210 into the first support recesses 112 formed at four corners of the inner peripheral surface of the main housing 110, one side of which is opened, respectively, as illustrated in FIG. 4, and the guide 300 includes a body 310 that is formed to be inserted into the interior of the main housing 110, guide grooves 320 that are formed at four corners of the body 310 to guide the first magnets 210 into the first support recesses 112, and a handle 330 that is formed on one side surface of the body 310 to protrude.

Accordingly, the first magnets 210 are inserted into the guide grooves 320 formed at the four corners, respectively after the guide 300 is inserted into the main housing 110, the first magnets 210 are accurately inserted into the first support recesses 112 along the guide grooves 320.

Thereafter, after all the first magnets 210 are inserted into the four corners, the guide 300 is separated from the main housing 110 while the handle 330 is gripped.

When the first magnets 210 are inserted into the first support recesses 112 without using the guide 300, a finger is not easily inserted due to a depth of the main housing 110, and thus, the first magnets 210 are inserted as if slightly thrown into the first support recesses 112, and in this process, when the direction is slightly misaligned, the first magnets 210 are not inserted into the first support recesses 112 at corresponding positions due to attractive forces with other already inserted first magnets 210, and because the plurality of first magnets 210 are coupled to each other in such a state, they have to be separated and inserted again, so that productivity deteriorates.

Here, in the drawings, reference numeral 340 denotes the guide grooves, into which the reinforcing bars is inserted.

Meanwhile, as illustrated in FIG. 7, other configurations of the cube piece using spherical magnets according to another embodiment of the present disclosure are the same as those in an embodiment, except that the main housing 110 does not have a reinforcing bar and a center pillar that defines the fixing part of the cover housing 130 is circular, and thus, a detailed description thereof will be omitted.

In this way, according to the present disclosure, spherical magnets are disposed at eight corners of a hexahedral body to constitute a cube piece, so that point contacts are formed between the spherical magnets when the cube pieces are coupled to each other, thereby allowing easy coupling and separation, and only half of contact surfaces of the cube pieces overlap each other while a magnetic force is formed constant, so that various shapes may be formed with the cube and creativity may be improved.

Furthermore, according to the present disclosure, the magnets may be easily inserted into the inside of the housing by using the guide, and because the magnets are inserted at accurate positions without causing inconvenience of having to separate and reinsert the magnets due to the magnets being coupled to each other by attractive forces during the insertion process, workability is improved and productivity is improved.

Furthermore, the guide is provided with the handle, so that it may be easily separated after inserting the magnets, thereby improving work convenience.