Toy vehicle programmed to follow a manually drawn path

摘要

A toy vehicle (20, 220) has motive chassis (22) configured for itinerant maneuvers and is programmed by manually drawing a path (41) on an exposed surface (44, 244) of a mechanical touch screen assembly (40, 240) on the vehicle. A microprocessor (80), coupled with the touch screen assembly, reads the manually drawn path (41) and controls movement of the motive chassis to follow the manually drawn path. In one embodiment, an existing drawn path (41) can be erased by pivoting a first sheet (44) of the assembly away from a second sheet (50) and, in another embodiment, by separating the first (244) and second (50) sheets of the touch screen assembly by sliding a horizontal plate element (239) between the sheets. A sensor (33) detects the presence of the stylus in a holder on the vehicle. The microprocessor responds to the presence to initiate the itinerant movement and/or activate a visual (107, 109) indicator or an audio generator (104) or both in the toy vehicle when the stylus is placed in the holder. <IMAGE>