Cheap minesweeper uses wind power

[Palinurus]

An Afghan refugee, Massoud Hassani, accepted as such in The Netherlands and trained there to be a product designer, came up with a brilliant idea for a cheap minesweeper to be used in (parts of) his mine riddled homeland.

Video Mine Kafon here: _http://vimeo.com/51887079

Personal blogspot here: _http://www.massoudhassani.blogspot.nl/

Kickstarter page here: _http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/massoudhassani/mine-kafon

Seems interesting enough to recommend to the attention of other people, I think.

Edited: to add photograph.

 

[Palinurus]

UPDATE - now on SOTT here:

http://www.sott.net/article/255745-Mine-Kaffon-The-low-tech-high-design-tumbleweed-minesweeper

 

[grini]

Thanks for sharing, Palinurus. Idea is great, and it is cheap, and I think it could work great in deserts and clean fields. But there is one big limitation:

"It looks to me that there is also a huge limitation in terms of terrain," he added. "I can't see it working on hills or areas with dense vegetation."

Komorowski is so right.
Here is the photo from the last year, when I was visiting my grandma's sisters for the first time in one Croatian region. Sorry for low quality photo, I was using digital zoom because I didn't want to get closer.
On that sign you can see a skull and two bones, below that it says "Do not approach". There are mines all over that place... and you can see there are hills, bushes and trees around. That minesweeper couldn't go through that.

 

[Palinurus]

I completely agree, grini. This certainly isn't a panacea, nor is it meant to be. There simply isn't going to be a 'cure all' solution for this vast problem. Nevertheless, I welcome this example of 'out of the box' thinking as an achievement in itself, apart from the result it brought about which shows obvious limitations.

Clearly, the inventor himself appears to be limited by his background surroundings as the numerous mines in his homeland formed the most pressing problem he tried to solve. Who would blame him for this specific form of shortsightedness?

 

[psychegram]

I completely agree, grini. This certainly isn't a panacea, nor is it meant to be. There simply isn't going to be a 'cure all' solution for this vast problem. Nevertheless, I welcome this example of 'out of the box' thinking as an achievement in itself, apart from the result it brought about which shows obvious limitations.

Clearly, the inventor himself appears to be limited by his background surroundings as the numerous mines in his homeland formed the most pressing problem he tried to solve. Who would blame him for this specific form of shortsightedness?

Is it short-sighted to find a solution that addresses the local specifics of a global problem? Or is it ultimately how we 'debug reality'? We develop a global understanding of things, of what is, and then focus that understanding into solutions to problems in our immediate locality, the only part of universe that we can directly affect. Very often the problems are but refractions of much larger issues ... in which case the local solution can only be temporary (assuming the global problem to be unaddressed) but what of it? So often everyone tries to think of silver bullet solutions to global problems, or simply closes their minds to all such thought as those problems are too terrifying. Very often the 'let's solve the whole world's problems' idea gets used to start wars. It's certainly very useful in disempowering the greater part of the population, as of course Solutions to Big Problems must almost invariably be developed and guided by so-called elites.

If instead many people looked for immediate, creative solutions to local problems, perhaps reality would be more efficiently debugged. Certainly they'd be more empowered, as they would be dealing with problems at human scales. They'd be harder to fool into furthering imperialist ambitions. They'd be harder to govern in general, since they'd be used to taking autonomous action in the world rather than waiting for dictates from on high.

I for one found this video inspiring.

I wish I knew how to remove mines in Croatia, or all the many, many other places this device is unsuitable for. Hopefully Hassani's creativity will inspire others to tackle this problem in unique ways ... and hopefully one of them will find something that is very cheap, and very effective, and can be used anywhere.

 

[Palinurus]

Thank you for your reaction, psychegram. I concur with your remarks.

Besides, you made me aware I should have put the word shortsightedness into single quote marks like this: 'shortsightedness' to emphasize I meant it to be ironical. So I owe you and other readers an apology. Sorry about that. I didn't realize this wasn't totally clear for unsuspecting readers. So thanks again. Lesson learned.

 

[psychegram]

Thank you for your reaction, psychegram. I concur with your remarks.

Besides, you made me aware I should have put the word shortsightedness into single quote marks like this: 'shortsightedness' to emphasize I meant it to be ironical. So I owe you and other readers an apology. Sorry about that. I didn't realize this wasn't totally clear for unsuspecting readers. So thanks again. Lesson learned.

No worries ... I had a feeling you were being ironic, and should have responded in that spirit.