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That Will Never Work: Umbrella That Repels Rain With Air

November 7, 2012 / air, hocus pocus, i mean i love conceptual designs as much as the next person who likes making fake products in photoshop but that will never work, iffy, magic wand, mother nature, physics, questionable, rain, screw it -- make them and i'll buy one anyways, that will never work, umbrella, water, weather, wind, yeah no

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This is the conceptual Air Umbrella from designer Je Sung Park. The idea is that it will blow a canopy of air above the holder that repels rain. Except that will never happen. Now I'm not saying somebody needs to brush up on their physics, but that little air-shield is gonna be canceled by SPOILER: the wind. Or any movement really. Plus it's way underpowered. You'd have to be holding a high-speed industrial fan over your head to even stand a chance of repelling the rain, and I bet even that wouldn't work. Besides, what's so bad about getting soaked anyways? I LIKE it. That's part of the reason I shower so much. "Showering is completely different." It's similar! Plus makes a great place to sit and cry. Was that a tear or a water droplet? You can't tell!

Hit the jump for several more shots of the damn, I really need to get into conceptual product design.

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Thanks to cupcake ninja, who -- WAIT A MINUTE, I swear there was a cupcake on the counter just a second ago.

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There are Comments
  • Sage Stonepath

    I like how they used an asian kid to make it seem futuristic.

  • Casanova

    Do you think he was pissed off with his regular umbrella blowing inside out?

  • "Now I'm not saying somebody needs to brush up on their physics, but that little air-shield is gonna be canceled by SPOILER: the wind. Or any movement really. Plus it's way underpowered. You'd have to be holding a high-speed industrial fan over your head to even stand a chance of repelling the rain"

    I think the writer of this article has several wrong ideas about the concept. Its not trying to 'repel' rain back up/away - the idea here is that the air coming out from the top of the device has enough horizontal velocity to push rain sideways, away from the user below. If its strong enough to do that, then a little wind or movement wont effect it all that much, other than perhaps weakening the strength of the 'barrier' on whichever side the wind is coming from.

    Also how can you say its underpowered? This is a concept... ie there is no mechanical specifications (as far as Ive seen) attributed to the design at all. Its like saying my concept of a 'laser sword' wont have a hot enough blade to do anything useful - its a concept, I havent even worked out what generates the laser yet, so how can you criticize such specific aspects of the design?

    Either way, it certainly doesnt seem impossible, you could probably come up with a functioning version now in 2012 if you hooked it up to some kind of larger/powerful air compressor, at the expense of probably having to wear some bulky equipment as a backpack. We probably dont have the kind of tech to make something like this so sleek and handheld, but thats not to say we never will.

    The problem is how practical this really would be. The first issue I can see, aside from tech, is the fact that anyone around you will be showered in horizontal rain/spray. So it might work for one person, but no one else anywhere near that person is going to be overly happy being smashed in the face by thousands of tiny, high velocity beads of water....

  • digitalchet

    Where do the batteries go. I imagine you'd need a hell of a lot of space to house enough batteries to make it worthwhile, unless it functions on some kind of black magic, which upon further though I'm actually ok with.

  • thatcando

    include AC!

  • n_a_a_s

    ineffective or not, it's a clever way of getting your ass kicked by a bunch of wet people

  • So instead of being poked in the eye by the metal spikes of normal umbrellas, I get a free face-slashing by this AA-devouring abomination. Thinking things through... you're doing it wrong.

  • sandul

    This sounds like a job for... MYTHBUSTERS!

  • Blinghamstar

    Dumbrella.

  • I live in Kansas. How well would that work with hail. Ha!

  • $18922249

    On the bright side, it won't at all look like you are walking around holding up a 'pleasure wand' in the rain.

  • This is an interesting concept, however I'll stick to the low-tech version.

  • Save a plastic bag... By consuming countless alkaline batteries.

  • so dumb.
    wont work.

  • Guest

    Wait, I need to gas up my umbrella!

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