DailyDirt: Build A Better Mousetrap Umbrella...

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

There are all kinds of ways to improve on everyday items. We've talked about how wallets are a popular type of project on Kickstarter, but there are certainly plenty of other things that could be re-designed and made slightly (or significantly) better. The Ralph Waldo Emerson quote about building a better mousetrap actually didn't mention mousetraps, but we've ended up with a lot of mousetrap inventions, regardless. Here are just a few examples of umbrella inventions that the world might beat a path to.

• A novel umbrella (called the Sa) uses origami techniques to fold up nicely and resist inverting in strong winds. It's a $70 umbrella, though, so it's not quite for everyone. (Plus, it's not made out of a single square sheet of paper.) [url]
• Another Kickstarter umbrella project is selling a battery-powered wand that shoots jets of air to repel raindrops. It doesn't actually exist yet (which might be a violation of Kickstarter's terms), and it looks not unlike a fat plastic toilet plunger. Despite the drawbacks of this design and its $88 price tag, it has exceeded its funding goal by about an order of magnitude. [url]
• A few years ago, another Air Umbrella was designed by Je Sung Park & Woo Jung Kwon, but this concept product didn't solve the engineering challenges of creating a curtain of air that actually repelled raindrops. Perhaps someday there will be a wide selection of nice-looking, quiet, electric umbrellas, but in the meantime, noisy air-blowing umbrellas hopefully won't get too popular. [url]

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post via StumbleUpon.

Filed Under: air umbrella, crowdfunding, design, inventions, origami, sa, umbrellas
Companies: kickstarter