Improved Umbrella Design

Pretty much my first thought for creating an improved grip was umbrellas. I really hate carrying them around, whether it's when they're open or closed. I wanted something that was more comfortable to use, especially in windy weather. So I focused on what I thought would make the handle easier to grip.

I went through several ideas when sketching, that ranged from preventing your hand from sliding up or down the handle, and having places to rest your fingers. I knew I wanted several designs to pull from, and a lot of them involved curved pieces, whether it was indentations for fingers or a more fluid shape.

Next I took two of my ideas and modeled them in Solidworks. I wasn't exactly sure which idea I wanted to do yet, but I picked two of the simpler ones, keeping in mind that the next project would be to mold my grip.

After Solidworks, I moved to Slicer. I sliced my parts so that they would interlock after I had laser cut them. I used acrylic for my base and hot glued the interlocking pieces together.

Next I started on packing clay onto the base. I focused on getting the basic shape right, but did struggle with the smoothing out the clay a little bit, since the base was so large. In trying to stay within the size constraints, I ended up scraping back to the acrylic base when trying to get a smooth finish.

Below are some photos of the finish project and my process work.