Subscribe | UPI Odd Newsletter Subscribe NANJING, China, Oct. 16 (UPI) -- A Chinese team is seeking funding on Kickstarter for the "air umbrella," a device that creates air flows to keep the user dry in a downpour. Wang Chuan, 27, of Nanjing, said he came up with the idea for the air umbrella while watching wind change the direction of falling rain on top of a building and he enlisted postgraduate students at Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics and doctoral thermal engineering students at the Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics to help him create viable models. Advertisement "The airflow forms an umbrella without a visible cover," Wang told the South China Morning Post. There are currently three models of the umbrellas, which run on lithium batteries. One model, the smallest version, currently has a battery life of 15 minutes while the other two last for about 30 minutes. Wang and his cohorts are now seeking funding to mass produce the umbrellas on crowd-funding website Kickstarter. "It's a great platform allowing us to raise funds and test the product's market potential. It's like standing on a giant's shoulder," Wang said. "But we are quite worried that we might not be able to hit the required goal ... [within] the initial promotion period offered by the site." Advertisement As of Thursday the Kickstarter page had raised more than $45,000, well over its initial $10,000 goal, with seven days left in the campaign.
