Having to go out in the morning to get snow off your car is a hard task that nobody enjoys doing. The goal of the Cood was to make a product that protects your car from the snow and that you could take wherever you go. The initial idea of the Cood was an inflatable ‘shell’ for your car to protect you from the snow. After making models and continuing on the idea, I realized that the inflatable element of the design wasn’t really essential -- the final product would have used power to inflate, would have been very large and hard to store and therefore be hard to take with you wherever you go. Knowing these problems with the initial idea I then shifted my thinking. I found myself  inspired by the way a tent protects from the elements. I then started to imagine a pitched tent that goes over your car and causes the snow to fall off. With this idea, the Cood was born.

In the first prototype, the Cood was made of a real tent rainfly. I had constructed the ‘skeleton’ of the Cood with a tentpole spine and string connecting the spine to the wheel wells. The tent rainfly itself had no real connection to the skeleton and I had a hard time really fitting the fly to the shape of the tent. After constructing my first prototype, I decided to do a outdoor storm test as snow was in the forecast. The outdoor test gave me some valuable information that I would not have gotten otherwise. During the test I saw that snow was sticking to the heavy canvas and piling up. This caused the tent to sag and the product not to work like it should. After the test I knew what I needed to change in order to make the Cood more effective. I decided I needed to make my own tent. To ensure that the snow wouldn’t stick like in the test, I went with a slippery nylon material that the snow would slide right off of.

After lots of time spent cutting and then sewing the fabric I had finished the new, form-fitted, tent. The tent was attached to the spine of the Cood through a small pocket sewn into the fabric. I also eliminated the strings that kept the spine centered and replaced it with a built in strap-bungee system in the fabric that ensures the tent will be under tension. In the future I would create a way to attach the central spine to the bumper to ensure total portability. 

The Cood is a new way to protect your car from the elements. The Cood eliminates having to go outside in the morning after a storm and wipe off the accumulated snow. The Cood enables a quick and easy set up of a fully functioning tent that rests on top of your car. The Cood has a foldable spine that  easily attaches to the bumpers of your car as well as four straps that you pull down and attach to the wheel wells of the car. These straps hold the tent to the car and give the tent tension, ensuring that falling snow will slide off. The central spine along with the straps ensure that the Cood will stay on, even in storms with high winds. The Cood is also fully portable. The spine of the Cood is actually made of foldable tent poles, and when fully disassembled, the Cood fits in any standard trunk. The Cood is very quick to set up and take down, taking about a minute to set up, and 30 seconds to take down. This is much quicker than the several minutes it takes to clear snow off the entire car. The Cood is perfect for drivers in snowy areas who don’t have a garage at home or at work.