A promotion poster of the air umbrella on kickstarter.com developed by some postgraduate students in Nanjing, Jiangsu province.




Inventors from Nanjing, Jiangsu province, have put their air umbrella project on America's Kickstarter, the world's largest fund raising platform for creative ideas.

So far, more than 200 netizens have ordered the umbrella, amounting to a total sum of nearly 30,000 US dollars.

The umbrella, a plastic stick that looks like a hairdryer, can blow raindrops at least one meter away.

The rod culminates in a bulbous tip with a tiny motor inside. Air is sucked in through one end and comes out the other at varying speeds. It creates an air blade that simply redirects the rain away from pedestrians.

The umbrella comes in three models which differ from each other in both length and battery life. The lightest one is 500 kilograms and 30 centimeters long, with a battery life of 15 minutes; while the largest one is scalable, 50 centimeters long after shortened and 80 centimeters long after extended, weighing 850 kilograms. The battery life is about 30 minutes.

However, many people are unsatisfied with its hefty weight and short battery life. They argued that it is easy to blow raindrops onto other people, but holding a bare rod walking in the rain looks really stupid.