Inflatable Bottle Cap Valve for Shooting Target Feedback
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Solution Overview
Problem
Target shooting enthusiasts face challenges in replicating the shooting range experience, especially in rural areas where facilities are scarce, due to high costs and lack of cost-effective, easily assembled targets that provide adequate feedback and excitement.
Innovation Solution
A cap for a plastic beverage bottle equipped with a valve that allows inflation, enabling the bottle to be used as a target that explodes upon impact, simulating the sound and experience of a shooting range, using a thermoplastic cap body and polymeric elastomer valve body for secure sealing and inflation.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If traditional shooting range facilities are used, then authentic shooting experience is achieved, but travel time and costs increase significantly for rural enthusiasts
Solution Approach 1:
The patent creates a simplified copy of the shooting range experience by using inflated plastic bottles as targets that replicate the sound and visual feedback of traditional ranges. The bottles are filled with air to create an explosive popping sound when struck, mimicking the authentic shooting experience without requiring travel to actual ranges.
2Reliability
If specialized target equipment is purchased, then shooting experience is enhanced, but individual expense increases significantly
Solution Approach 1:
The patent employs inexpensive plastic beverage bottles as the primary target medium. These bottles can be easily replaced after use, and the cap-valve assembly can be reused across multiple bottles. The overall system provides repeated shooting experience at minimal cost compared to traditional target equipment.
Solution Approach 2:
The cap assembly with integrated valve serves multiple functions: it seals the bottle, provides an inflation mechanism, and creates the explosive sound effect. This multi-functional design eliminates the need for separate target structures, sound-generating devices, and inflation equipment, reducing overall expense.
3Quantity of substance
If flat repurposed objects are used as targets, then cost is reduced, but sound and experience feedback is insufficient
Solution Approach 1:
The patent uses pneumatic pressure by inflating the plastic bottle with air through a valve in the cap. The trapped air creates internal pressure that, when released upon impact, generates an explosive popping sound. This pneumatic mechanism transforms a simple flat object into a three-dimensional sound-generating target.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent changes the physical state of the bottle from deflated to inflated, altering its acoustic properties. The inflated state creates the desired explosive sound feedback, while the deflated state allows for easy replacement and reuse. This parameter change enables cost-effective targets with high-quality sound feedback.
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
The solution provides a cost-effective, easily assembled target that enhances the shooting experience by replicating the sound and feedback of a traditional shooting range, allowing for recreational use and potential commercial applications, while promoting recycling through the reuse and eventual recycling of plastic bottles.
Implementation Method 1
the valve body comprising an upper portion, a lower portion, and an intermediately disposed stem portion... the lower portion comprises an inverted umbrella shaped portion circumscribed by a disk-shaped top forming a seal
Data Source
AI summary
A cap apparatus includes a cap body and a valve body. The valve body includes an upper portion, a lower portion, and a stem intermediately disposed between the upper portion and the lower portion, the valve body including a bore formed therein having concentric alignment to and traversing the upper portion and the stem, and the valve body including a perforation formed therein having concentric alignment to and traversing the stem and the lower portion. The perforation forms a substantially impermeable seal within the valve body. The cap body includes an aperture in coaxial alignment with the bore and the perforation. The inner surface of the cap body includes multiple internal threads.