Tent

A tent is a shelter consisting of sheets of fabric or other material draped over or attached to a frame of poles or a supporting rope.

Small tents may be sufficiently light that they can be carried for long distances on a touring bicycle, a boat, or when backpacking.

Over the past decade, tents have also been increasingly linked with homelessness crises in the United States, Canada, and other regions.

A form of tent called a teepee or tipi, noted for its cone shape and peak smoke hole, was also used by Native American tribes and Aboriginal Canadians of the Plains Indians since ancient times, variously estimated from 10,000 to 4,000 years BC.

The major technological advance was the use of linen or hemp canvas for the canopy versus leather for the Romans.

The primary use of tents was still to provide portable shelter for a small number of men in the field.

By World War I larger designs were being deployed in rear areas to provide shelter for support activities and supplies.

Tents are preferred by the military for their relatively quick setup and take down times, compared to more traditional shelters.

In the 1970s and 1980s anti-nuclear peace camps spread across Europe and North America, with the largest women's-only camp to date set up outside the RAF Greenham Common United States airbase in Newbury, England to protest the deployment there of cruise missiles during the Cold War.

Occupy protesters use tents to create camps in public places wherein they can form communities of open discussion and democratic action.

[citation needed] Generally, the interior of an enclosed tent is about 10 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than the outside environment (not accounting for wind chill), due to the retention of body heat and (to a lesser extent) radiation.

[7] Tent fabric may be made of many materials including cotton (canvas), nylon, felt and polyester.

Nylon and polyester are much lighter than cotton and do not absorb much water; with suitable coatings they can be very waterproof, but they tend to deteriorate over time due to a slow chemical breakdown caused by ultraviolet light.

The most common treatments to make fabric waterproof are silicone impregnation or polyurethane coating.

Checking the quoted sizes of sleeping areas reveals that several manufacturers consider that a width of 150 cm (4.9 ft) is enough for three people; snug is the operative word.

Tent used in areas with biting insects often have their vent and door openings covered with fine-mesh netting.

Cheap poles are made of tubes of fibreglass with an external diameter less than 1 cm (1⁄3 in), whereas more expensive aluminium alloys are the material of choice for added strength and durability.

Much like a bicycle tube and tire, airbeams are often composed of a highly dimensionally stable (i.e. no stretch) fabric sleeve and an air-holding inner bladder.

However, other airbeam constructions consist of coated fabrics that are cut and manufactured to its intended shape by a method such as thermal welding.

Depending on the desired tent size, airbeams can be anywhere from 2-40 inches in diameter, inflated to different pressures.

The guys had to be positioned and tensioned fairly precisely in order to pitch the tent correctly, so some training and experience were needed.