For many years, dolls and toys have been sold together or separately with activity centers. One of the oldest examples of an activity center is a doll house. A child can take a doll and place it in proximity to an activity center in order to generate a scenario from the child""s imagination. The doll or toy can be placed in a doll house, in a motor vehicle, in a kitchen, in a grocery store, on a fashion runway, or in any other activity center environment.
One disadvantage of this arrangement, however, is that the doll and activity center do not interact such that either one can signal the presence of the other to the child playing with the doll or toy. This is left to the child""s imagination.
Accordingly, it would be advantageous to provide a doll and a doll activity center adapted to communicate with each other.
In a broad aspect, the doll and doll activity center of the present invention are adapted to communicate with each other with respect to the status of the doll or of the activity center, and either the doll or the activity center is adapted to generate an audible comment respecting said status.
In further aspects of the invention:
(a) the activity center is adapted to recognize at least one removable accessory;
(b) the activity center is adapted to signal the status of said accessory to the doll;
(c) the doll is adapted to indicate the status by making a preprogrammed comment;
(d) the doll and activity center comprises multiple removable accessories;
(e) the preprogrammed comment is chosen from a series of stored comments;
(f) the series of comments is stored on an integrated circuit chip;
(g) the audible comment comprises artificial speech;
(h) the audible comment is stored on an integrated circuit chip;
(i) the audible comment generated indicates whether the status is acceptable or not acceptable;
(j) the audible comment generated indicates whether the chosen accessory is acceptable or not acceptable;
(k) the activity center comprises a fashion runway;
(l) the activity center comprises a kitchen;
(m) the activity center comprises a shopping market;
(n) the activity center comprises an automobile;
(o) the accessory comprises a series of pins and the activity center comprises a series of receptacles adapted to receive such pins such that the activity center recognizes the accessory by means of the specific arrangement of said pins and receptacles and the contact therebetween;
(p) the accessory comprises one or more areas adapted to absorb or reflect an electromagnetic signal generated by the activity center, such that the activity center recognizes the accessory by means of the specific arrangement of said absorbing and reflecting areas.