Funbrella Makes Virtual Reality Rain Inside the Umbrella

Standing in the rain is certainly no fun. But standing in fake rain under an umbrella sounds like a lot of fun (I guess?) as long as you stay dry. Funbrella is a virtual reality project from the grad students at Osaka University. The Funbrella has springs at the top which monitor vibrations caused by the rain. It’s all hooked into a computer and then the Funbrella “replays” those same vibrations at a later time so it feels like it’s raining to the umbrella’s holder. The computer has an amplifier which plays the recorded sounds of the rain too.

There’s also a setting for “tele-rain” which transmits the vibrations from one user’s experience to the Funbrella of another. So if you’re standing in the rain, your buddy can virtually feel how hard it’s raining through his own Funbrella while staying dry. Now those crazy Osaka U. kids also did a little bit more than just record various levels of rain on the Funbrella- they recorded “crazy rain”. Oh yeah, we’re talking about it raining (fake) snakes, marbles, balls, hamburgers, and even samurai umbrella attacks! Maybe umbrellas are fun. Check out the video (skip the 1:35 intro):


via digital world tokyo