Discussion

The final element the go through is to discuss what the goals of the mechanism are and how they achieve those goals. Through this analysis, some flaws with the design were noticed as well and those will also be discussed.

The primary goal of the mechanism is ultimately to provide shade to the users. This design also has the added appeal that the shade angle can be adjusted easily to account for any time of day. Though it was not included in this analysis, the base of the mechanism can swivel 360° as well, allowing for maximum customization. Through the position analysis, we can come to appreciate just how this mechanism goes about achieving this customization. The following plots show the umbrella at the 4 extremes of its inputs:

As we can see, the variability available to a consumer is very high.

The next consideration for this mechanism is it ease of use, which we have quantified using the mechanical advantage measure. As we saw in the analysis of Mechanical Advantage, this mechanism has a significant inherent mechanical advantage which comes from both its internal pulley system, and the inherent geometry of the mechanism. This is extremely important since the user has to lift all 8 supports in the fully 3D structure (whereas only 2 are shown in the diagrams presented). As such the umbrella is easy to adjust without significant effort.

Finally we come to the only notable flaw with the mechanism. The animation below shows the locii of some of the key points on the mechanism as it moves from its stowed position to fully open.

We can see that the ends of the roof support links extend quite significantly while still low to the ground, meaning that it can be easily blocked by obstacles. Indeed this is something that I have noticed while using the umbrella in my own home, it often gets caught on chairs and fences in the vicinity when being opened or closed.