Modular Building Blocks for Flexible Visual Display Foundation
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing decorative display systems are expensive, heavy, non-flexible, and require skilled labor for assembly and reconfiguration, making them costly and inefficient for changing designs.
Innovation Solution
A flexible building block system made from lightweight materials like Styrofoam or plastics, featuring apertures and aperture plugs, that can be manually bent and secured to form a foundation for deformable materials to create a non-deformable visual display, allowing for easy reconfiguration and minimal cost increases.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Stability of the object's composition
If rigid forms made of wood or similar non-flexible material are used, then the foundation provides structural stability, but the device becomes heavy and non-flexible requiring skilled labor for assembly and reconfiguration
Solution Approach 1:
The patent uses flexible building blocks made from lightweight materials that can be manually bent and shaped. These blocks contain apertures that allow them to be arcuately configured and maintain their bent shape, providing both flexibility and structural stability without requiring heavy rigid materials like wood.
Solution Approach 2:
The building blocks are made from composite or lightweight materials that combine flexibility with sufficient structural integrity. This allows the blocks to be manually manipulated into desired configurations while maintaining stability once assembled, eliminating the need for heavy traditional materials.
2Stability of the object's composition
If rigid forms are used to construct the foundation, then the display maintains its shape, but the device becomes expensive and requires a myriad of workers possessing different skills to construct
Solution Approach 1:
The foundation is divided into multiple modular building blocks that can be individually assembled. Each block contains apertures that allow them to be connected and configured in various arrangements, simplifying the assembly process while maintaining the overall display shape through modular construction rather than requiring complex monolithic forms.
Solution Approach 2:
The flexible building blocks can be manually bent and shaped by workers without requiring specialized skills. The apertures in the blocks allow them to be arcuately configured and maintain their bent shape, enabling simple manual assembly while preserving the intended display configuration.
3Stability of the object's composition
If traditional rigid forms are used, then the foundation is structurally sound, but reconfiguration requires tearing down and rebuilding the entire structure increasing cost and time
Solution Approach 1:
The foundation consists of discrete modular building blocks that can be independently moved and repositioned. This segmentation allows individual blocks to be reconfigured without affecting the entire structure, enabling easy adaptation to new display designs while maintaining foundation integrity through the modular assembly.
Solution Approach 2:
The building blocks are designed to be dynamically reconfigurable. The apertures allow the blocks to be bent into different shapes and connected in various configurations, enabling the foundation to adapt to different display requirements while maintaining structural soundness through the flexible yet stable block design.
4Ease of operation
If apertures are included in the building blocks to enable bending, then the blocks become flexible and manually configurable, but the deformable material may escape through the apertures
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces aperture plugs as intermediary elements that temporarily fill the apertures in the building blocks. These plugs prevent the deformable material from escaping through the openings while allowing the blocks to be bent and configured. Once configuration is complete, the plugs can be removed or left in place depending on the application, solving the conflict between needing open apertures for flexibility and closed apertures for material retention.
Data Source
AI summary
A device for configuring deformable material to provide a predetermined relatively non-deformable visual display includes a plurality of configuration blocks for receiving deformable material that ultimately transforms to a relatively non-deformable material, and a key member for aligning and securing together adjacently disposed configuration blocks. Each of the configuration blocks include a plurality of gaps for arcuately disposing the configuration blocks; and an insert member that engages a ridge portion of each configuration block to ultimately configure an edge portion of the deformable material. A base portion of each configuration block ultimately receives deformable material thereupon that is configured to a predetermined design. Arm members of each configuration block and the insert member are manually removed, after the deformable material transforms to a relatively non-deformable material, to expose a predetermined design in the edge portion and the base portion of each configuration block. The combined displays in the edge portions and the base portions of the configuration blocks provide a predetermined relatively non-deformable visual display.