Have you ever seen those car window sunshades which compress into a small circle , and then pop up again? I saw a fishing shelter based on the same principle, and thought, how about a tent? It would be a little wide, but very quick to set up in rain, or any conditions. All you'd need would be pegs and a fly (Which could be an intergral part of the system).
-- QuadAlpha, Jan 10 2001

Pop-up tent http://www.millets....s(BLG+Base+Catalog)
They beat ya to it. [squeak, Jun 01 2006]

One caveat is that you really should make sure a tent is secured to the ground before you "expand" it; there's nothing like having a tent try to blow away to make your day interesting...
-- supercat, Jan 10 2001


There are popup tents like that already. Pull them out of the bag and give them a shake, and fwapoof, a tent.
-- StarChaser, Jan 12 2001


Old Downeast humor: This old fella walks into L.L.Bean and looks at the tents. The salesman walks over to him and says "What you need is our brand-new pop-up tent -- it fits in your hip pocket, and when you want to set it up you just toss it in a bucket of water." "That's amazing," says the old fella, "but how do you pack it away again?" "Oh, you just leave it in the sun for an hour." says the salesman. The old fella replies, "Yes, and if you oversleep you'll end up right back inside your own hip pocket!"
-- jurgen, May 21 2001


I have one made by Dunlop. Pretty nifty, but folding it back up is a bit complicated.
-- sh4linux, Aug 21 2001


Apparently already patented in the US, at least inflatable tents are.
-- Ouroborus, Jun 01 2006



random, halfbakery