Mine rollers and mine flails like this have been tried and tested since WWI but none have proven completely effective in finding and clearing mines. This is partially because they only work well on totally flat terrain and rapidly lose effectiveness in rougher terrain where a large number of mines are typically buried.
In practice, solutions like this achieve only 50-60% effectiveness at clearing minefields, which makes them useless for civilian demining which demands a 99% clearance rate.
For that reason there's been a ton of research in this area which has resulted in better demining vehicles and interesting new techniques such as using sniffer dogs or rats to detect the explosives inside landmines. This is especially useful for the numerous plastic-shelled landmines that resist standard detection methods.
Using a layered approach with these techniques, civilian demining organisations like Mechem[0] (which pioneered the use of sniffer dogs) are now able to achieve a high enough clearance rate to make areas safe, though the work is expensive and time-consuming. If you support this sort of work, donating money to demining NGOs would be better than funding yet another ineffective mine roller.
Turns out that the Dutch armed forces agree[1] that it's not so easy either:
"The Mine Kafon has just been tested by the Dutch Explosive Ordnance Disposal Unit, which has concluded that it is not suitable for mine clearance (which requires a more systematic approach), but at $50 each could be used as a cheap and safe way to identify dangerous areas that need demining."
The difference is this costs 40 € and can clear a couple of mines for that money. Afghanistan is not exactly rolling in cash, so any cheap improvement is a valuable addition to the toolbox - it provides a way for poor communities to do something while they're waiting for America to donate enough money to clean up their mess.
My guess is that demining NGOs will be using something like this soon enough if it proves effective, though, so any donation dollar really is best sent there for maximum effectiveness.
A huge problem is that land mines get unreliable over time and thus a mine flail might hit it but it does not detonate. However it could still go off when handled later.
My favourite solution so far was to use plants that turn red near mines, thus pretty much creating red circles around their location. I read about it few years ago in a science magazine, but somehow the research seems to have died.
> civilian demining which demands a 99% clearance rate.
Is that an actual official classification? It seems a bit low. "There were 1000 mines here, and we found 990 of them. Good enough, I say. Move in, and bring your kids!"
I agree. Demining for human/civilian is harder than just to clear a way for a military purpose. The thing with projects like this roller is that it actually takes money and time from the things that really work, like sniffer dogs.
Surprise, surprise .. 'authorities' are 'doing it better'.
Well, this tech is not for the authorities. Its for children to use to help clear the danger away from their villages. Its a tech that anyone can apply, not just those with access industrialized manufacturing facilities and the 'mine-clearing economy'.
99% clearance rate? I think most villages would be happy with being able to clear a safe path for their kids to walk on, at any rate. This cheap, useful, easy to apply technology allows that to occur. Make 100 of them, let them loose for a few weeks, and suddenly 99% seems a lot more doable with this method than any other - especially for the resource-lacking Afghani villages who are left with the war liability that the imperial, authoritarian states, have given them ..
_djo_ I like a lot of what you have to say. I'd also like to know more details around why rougher terrains are a problem? As an idea .. say you had a number of these things, small and heavy with a cheap protected motor and gps guided ... would that have a chance of better clearance? more in the 99% range?
I think the solution mentioned in the clip might indicate a starting point. no?
It is depressing to me that a community as smart as this is so congratulatory of such inch-deep stuff. Oooh, landmines! Design! Shiny! But a fast perusal of the comments shows that this approach is at best problematic. And a deeper reading of the comments suggests this might very well be a dangerous anti-pattern.
People, you are some of the brightest and cleverest people walking the earth. And the earth has some nasty problems. They won't be solved by meaning well or looking cool.
In my early days I worked with homeless and mentally disabled people, I migrated to government policy to solve larger problems, but I was perpetually frustrated by the refusal to ask hard questions of stuff that sounded good. And you know what? I am so sorry to tell you, but there are people who have noticed this persistent absence of accountability, and who are willing to exploit it.
I have no particular reason to believe that the designer in the OP is a cynic. But you do his effort to help no favors by upvoting it to the moon because it looks cool. The informed and thoughtful critique in the comments DOES help, and a dialogue talking about the potential application of design to the problem would help still further. Here are a few ideas:
- Kids ignore warning signs around mine fields -- why not design hideous boundary demons to frighten them off?
- Design "clear trail" markers apparent in all weather and easily moved to reflect cleared sections?
- Mapped displays of mined areas as targets for Apple vs Microsoft battles to see who can clear more?
- Does the computing power of Raspberry Pi offer new possibilities for cheap clearance -- maybe gather seismographic data with controlled explosions to be analyzed for "echoes" of a landmine?
- Declaring total clearance is a problem, what if there were a program that took 99% cleared land and used as grazing pasture for 10 years so the cows can find the missing bombs?
These don't strike me as half bad and I suck so I expect most of this board can come up with better and more detailed.
The guy is trying to do something and that's great. But let's not just congratulate him and move on. Let's actually think about whether the damn thing helps, and if not, how design could help more.
“But you do his effort to help no favors by upvoting it to the moon because it looks cool. The informed and thoughtful critique in the comments DOES help, and a dialogue talking about the potential application of design to the problem would help still further.“
Upvotes give a post visibility. Visibility fosters discussion. Discussion yields information, critique, and dialogue. I'm uncertain as to why you're complaining about the upvotes given that you want critique and comments.
I think people like ideas like this because the idea that USA is going to back down to some where-the-fuck-am-I place in northern Cambodia and Laos to remove the bombs we dropped is laughable: http://truth-out.org/news/item/3001:landmines-and-cluster-bo...
You act cynical and as though you have a 'realist' point of view, but nowhere do you mention holding the countries that dropped these weapons accountable. Why don't we shame them? Why don't we pay for handicapped children to come to the USA and peacefully sit in on protests? Why not make this the embarrassing issue it should be?
I like the idea because I was in Afghanistan for some time and saw humans in blue suits clearing them in that very same place. I would much prefer a device like this, shiny or not.
Since when did we become so cynical that every effort must be criticized on execution rather than lauded on effort?
Sorry for going completely off-topic, but I'm slightly annoyed at the overuse of adverbs like "hauntingly" and "wildly". "Hauntingly" might be tolerated here even if it is very hyperbolic, but "wildly low-cost"? What does that even mean?! Why can't the headline just be "Beautiful, Low-cost Solution to Clearing Afghan Landmines"?
Oh, and another one that has been popping up a lot around here lately is "vanishingly" (I've noticed Patio11 likes it a lot!).
This title is feels like a product of the previous article "how to pick your titles using AdWords" it is just missing "1 cheap trick that an Afghan child came up with that makes demining companies furious"
This is a great solution, but it seems like it is designed to follow a random path (that is, where the wind blows). How do you prevent this from creating a false sense of security, when in fact there are areas of the desert which have not been tested?
I remember when I was little I built a small platform high up in a tree. My father refused to let me put a rail around it, because the sort of rail I could build would not be enough to stop a fall and would only encourage a sense of complacency.
Of course, I do not mean this as a criticism of the design, but merely as a path for future exploration.
A truly random path would be pretty good, since you approach perfect coverage with repeated runs. Alas, the wind direction is not random, particularly in this kind of environment.
An interesting demining approach is to buy the local villagers lots of sheep and pen them in the areas of concern. Once in a while a sheep goes boom. Meanwhile: wool and baby sheep as a side effect.
One alternative to this is to just create lanes with rope.
i.e. you drive a stake in the ground on either side of the field (if that's even possible) and just create a lane where each of these rollers roll through.
It won't work in every single landmine, but it can provide a 'grid' within which you know what has been cleared and what has not.
I believe that studies (which I cannot find citations for now) determined that this device makes the sutation worse, as it scatters metalic debris over a wider area, and that human mine clearance teams have to work an order of magnitude harder, cleaning up tiny bits of shrapnel. Before an area can be marked clear, it has to be devoid of all unidentified metalic shards, and of course, all mines of other materials. As a result, it was the determination of more than one agency that this device makes things worse.
With that said, props to the designer for working on a solution to a difficult problem, but perhaps more domain knowledge would have lead him to a more suitable solution
This isn't to be used alone for clearing minefields - as it's not going to get 100% coverage.
It's still a useful tool for surveying minefields or perhaps doing a cheap first-pass before sending in pricey equipment
This story is only about the short film made about the Mine Kafon. If you want more info on the deminer itself you should check out the designer's blog. His concept also include GPS tracking and an online platform, as suggested here on HN.
great case study of why product design is very hard and requires deep understanding of the factors involved.
as others have pointed out:
- your goal is to clear an area, hence you need a systematic approach to be able to deem a strip of land safe. random paths do not help
- this identifies and detonates in one go. but if the mine does not get triggered, the identifier is lost. these are two separate tasks. merging them would only work with 100% detonation rate.
- this does not work against other types of explosives. anti-vehicle mines, unexploded ordnance, cluster ammo,...
the upside is definitely the low cost. the low effectiveness rate and unreliable pathing makes it lossy though. which with mines is not acceptable.
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One of the things which terrified me most about landmines was seeing signs all over pointing out that it was a violation of UCMJ and huge fine/jail/etc. for stealing land mine marker signs. I always assumed minefields were all either professionally laid (and marked) or had been marked by subsequent forces (and thus could be avoided), but I hadn't realized anyone would be stupid enough to steal the markers.
In practice the best way to clear most mines (to a military standard, which is far lower than civilian) seems to be explosively generated overpressure -- they launch a bunch of explosives, usually a linear charge, in the direction of travel, and it drops and blows up, clearing a path.
Using trained rats to clear mines (cheaper than dogs) seems to be the best upcoming way to meet the civilian standard. It's labor intensive, too, but most countries with landmines have relatively cheap labor, and the training to be a rat operator isn't as difficult as to be a full EOD tech. It's definitely one of the charities worth supporting.
These things look rad. If there was some way to keep track of the landmines detonated per Mine Kafo I could totally see making a game out of this. Donate $10 and get your name on a rolling mine clearer. Live scoreboard keeps track of mines cleared!
I find the story touching. Unexploded ordnance is a problem mainly for children in former war zones.
Imagine if the park / playground / vacant land where you played as a child was mined and you witnessed others, perhaps your friends getting killed or severely maimed there. Such an issue would weigh heavily on you for a lifetime.
While we can't seem to ban war, many countries have joined a treaty banning landmines. That doesn't help with the ~100M unexploded mines in the world already. This is a bigger problem than one would ever imagine.
"many countries have joined a treaty banning landmines"
The ones that should join that treaty have not.
My country should not have joined. I'm from Finland. All that treaty ever did was to get rid of foot mines that we're designed to be planted around a heavy tank mine to make the whole deal difficult to disassemble. Now as our mines are easily disassembled, it just kind makes attacking here easier. So completely opposite outcome is very probable than what was intended.
That looks pretty cool. I don't think it's correct to advertise it as "clearing" minefields though. It looks like a useful tool for identifying them, and making them a bit less miney.
My understanding is that manual, low-tech demining is not actually that dangerous. It requires some training and caution, but generally speaking anti-personnel mines aren't likely to do you much damage if approached carefully from the right angle.
Whereas the approach of getting machines to jump up and down randomly is expensive, likely to lead to a false sense of security and may even cause mines to get pushed into positions that make them more dangerous.
You could get a lot of Afghan workers enthusiastically doing low-tech demining for not that much money. Every now and again one of them would lose a finger or two but maybe that's not such a bad outcome considering the alternatives. People tend to get much more excited about expensive, higher tech solutions because they're sexier and the people who develop them (often the same people that made the mines in the first place) are better at selling them.
Is there a cheap way to add a chip to help map the precise route taken? It would increase the cost but I'd think it would help to know that an area has been covered several times.
When you put effort into promotional video, how hard is it to Google the actual Russian text for "danger minefield" rather than put up a shield with random Cyrillic alphabet soup?
[+] [-] _djo_|13 years ago|reply
Mine rollers and mine flails like this have been tried and tested since WWI but none have proven completely effective in finding and clearing mines. This is partially because they only work well on totally flat terrain and rapidly lose effectiveness in rougher terrain where a large number of mines are typically buried.
In practice, solutions like this achieve only 50-60% effectiveness at clearing minefields, which makes them useless for civilian demining which demands a 99% clearance rate.
For that reason there's been a ton of research in this area which has resulted in better demining vehicles and interesting new techniques such as using sniffer dogs or rats to detect the explosives inside landmines. This is especially useful for the numerous plastic-shelled landmines that resist standard detection methods.
Using a layered approach with these techniques, civilian demining organisations like Mechem[0] (which pioneered the use of sniffer dogs) are now able to achieve a high enough clearance rate to make areas safe, though the work is expensive and time-consuming. If you support this sort of work, donating money to demining NGOs would be better than funding yet another ineffective mine roller.
[0]http://www.mechemdemining.com/
[+] [-] cflee|13 years ago|reply
"The Mine Kafon has just been tested by the Dutch Explosive Ordnance Disposal Unit, which has concluded that it is not suitable for mine clearance (which requires a more systematic approach), but at $50 each could be used as a cheap and safe way to identify dangerous areas that need demining."
[1]http://australia.icbl.org/index_htm_files/May.pdf
[+] [-] Vivtek|13 years ago|reply
My guess is that demining NGOs will be using something like this soon enough if it proves effective, though, so any donation dollar really is best sent there for maximum effectiveness.
[+] [-] michaelgrafl|13 years ago|reply
That's not a rhetorical question. I'm genuinely interested.
[+] [-] aidos|13 years ago|reply
[0] http://www.ted.com/talks/bart_weetjens_how_i_taught_rats_to_...
[+] [-] fafner|13 years ago|reply
And there are even mines specifically designed to be resistant to mine flails https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MAT/6_mine
[+] [-] TeMPOraL|13 years ago|reply
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demining#Plants
[+] [-] Deestan|13 years ago|reply
Is that an actual official classification? It seems a bit low. "There were 1000 mines here, and we found 990 of them. Good enough, I say. Move in, and bring your kids!"
[+] [-] jonke|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pzaich|13 years ago|reply
http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/africa/09/07/herorats.dete...
[+] [-] primitur|13 years ago|reply
Well, this tech is not for the authorities. Its for children to use to help clear the danger away from their villages. Its a tech that anyone can apply, not just those with access industrialized manufacturing facilities and the 'mine-clearing economy'.
99% clearance rate? I think most villages would be happy with being able to clear a safe path for their kids to walk on, at any rate. This cheap, useful, easy to apply technology allows that to occur. Make 100 of them, let them loose for a few weeks, and suddenly 99% seems a lot more doable with this method than any other - especially for the resource-lacking Afghani villages who are left with the war liability that the imperial, authoritarian states, have given them ..
[+] [-] bjoyce1|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|13 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] haliax|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chernevik|13 years ago|reply
People, you are some of the brightest and cleverest people walking the earth. And the earth has some nasty problems. They won't be solved by meaning well or looking cool.
In my early days I worked with homeless and mentally disabled people, I migrated to government policy to solve larger problems, but I was perpetually frustrated by the refusal to ask hard questions of stuff that sounded good. And you know what? I am so sorry to tell you, but there are people who have noticed this persistent absence of accountability, and who are willing to exploit it.
I have no particular reason to believe that the designer in the OP is a cynic. But you do his effort to help no favors by upvoting it to the moon because it looks cool. The informed and thoughtful critique in the comments DOES help, and a dialogue talking about the potential application of design to the problem would help still further. Here are a few ideas: - Kids ignore warning signs around mine fields -- why not design hideous boundary demons to frighten them off? - Design "clear trail" markers apparent in all weather and easily moved to reflect cleared sections? - Mapped displays of mined areas as targets for Apple vs Microsoft battles to see who can clear more? - Does the computing power of Raspberry Pi offer new possibilities for cheap clearance -- maybe gather seismographic data with controlled explosions to be analyzed for "echoes" of a landmine? - Declaring total clearance is a problem, what if there were a program that took 99% cleared land and used as grazing pasture for 10 years so the cows can find the missing bombs?
These don't strike me as half bad and I suck so I expect most of this board can come up with better and more detailed.
The guy is trying to do something and that's great. But let's not just congratulate him and move on. Let's actually think about whether the damn thing helps, and if not, how design could help more.
[+] [-] shadowfiend|13 years ago|reply
Upvotes give a post visibility. Visibility fosters discussion. Discussion yields information, critique, and dialogue. I'm uncertain as to why you're complaining about the upvotes given that you want critique and comments.
[+] [-] bct|13 years ago|reply
Oh, please. It's exactly this kind of self-congratulatory bullshit that produces this community's inch-deep intellectual culture.
[+] [-] lrobb|13 years ago|reply
I think you're vastly overestimating this board's power & influence.
[+] [-] batgaijin|13 years ago|reply
You act cynical and as though you have a 'realist' point of view, but nowhere do you mention holding the countries that dropped these weapons accountable. Why don't we shame them? Why don't we pay for handicapped children to come to the USA and peacefully sit in on protests? Why not make this the embarrassing issue it should be?
[+] [-] nhangen|13 years ago|reply
Since when did we become so cynical that every effort must be criticized on execution rather than lauded on effort?
[+] [-] fusiongyro|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sgdesign|13 years ago|reply
Oh, and another one that has been popping up a lot around here lately is "vanishingly" (I've noticed Patio11 likes it a lot!).
[+] [-] sosuke|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] monochromatic|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] joonix|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chad_oliver|13 years ago|reply
I remember when I was little I built a small platform high up in a tree. My father refused to let me put a rail around it, because the sort of rail I could build would not be enough to stop a fall and would only encourage a sense of complacency.
Of course, I do not mean this as a criticism of the design, but merely as a path for future exploration.
[+] [-] robotresearcher|13 years ago|reply
An interesting demining approach is to buy the local villagers lots of sheep and pen them in the areas of concern. Once in a while a sheep goes boom. Meanwhile: wool and baby sheep as a side effect.
[+] [-] marcamillion|13 years ago|reply
i.e. you drive a stake in the ground on either side of the field (if that's even possible) and just create a lane where each of these rollers roll through.
It won't work in every single landmine, but it can provide a 'grid' within which you know what has been cleared and what has not.
[+] [-] codebeaker|13 years ago|reply
With that said, props to the designer for working on a solution to a difficult problem, but perhaps more domain knowledge would have lead him to a more suitable solution
[+] [-] haclifford|13 years ago|reply
This isn't to be used alone for clearing minefields - as it's not going to get 100% coverage. It's still a useful tool for surveying minefields or perhaps doing a cheap first-pass before sending in pricey equipment
[+] [-] joelcox|13 years ago|reply
http://minekafon.blogspot.nl
[+] [-] pinaceae|13 years ago|reply
as others have pointed out:
- your goal is to clear an area, hence you need a systematic approach to be able to deem a strip of land safe. random paths do not help
- this identifies and detonates in one go. but if the mine does not get triggered, the identifier is lost. these are two separate tasks. merging them would only work with 100% detonation rate.
- this does not work against other types of explosives. anti-vehicle mines, unexploded ordnance, cluster ammo,...
the upside is definitely the low cost. the low effectiveness rate and unreliable pathing makes it lossy though. which with mines is not acceptable.
[+] [-] michael_h|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Luyt|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] taejo|13 years ago|reply
Who writes this shit and thinks they're doing a good thing?
[+] [-] doublextremevil|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rdl|13 years ago|reply
In practice the best way to clear most mines (to a military standard, which is far lower than civilian) seems to be explosively generated overpressure -- they launch a bunch of explosives, usually a linear charge, in the direction of travel, and it drops and blows up, clearing a path.
Using trained rats to clear mines (cheaper than dogs) seems to be the best upcoming way to meet the civilian standard. It's labor intensive, too, but most countries with landmines have relatively cheap labor, and the training to be a rat operator isn't as difficult as to be a full EOD tech. It's definitely one of the charities worth supporting.
[+] [-] ricg|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ryanlbrown|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] japhyr|13 years ago|reply
I wonder if there is a way to make a more cylindrical version of this, which might follow a more predictable and controlled path through a minefield.
[+] [-] jtchang|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nostromo|13 years ago|reply
This got me thinking, could we train rats to locate landmines using their strong sense of smell? I googled, and it appears so. http://www.cnn.com/2012/02/13/world/americas/colombia-bomb-d...
[+] [-] OldSchool|13 years ago|reply
Imagine if the park / playground / vacant land where you played as a child was mined and you witnessed others, perhaps your friends getting killed or severely maimed there. Such an issue would weigh heavily on you for a lifetime.
While we can't seem to ban war, many countries have joined a treaty banning landmines. That doesn't help with the ~100M unexploded mines in the world already. This is a bigger problem than one would ever imagine.
[+] [-] nosse|13 years ago|reply
The ones that should join that treaty have not.
My country should not have joined. I'm from Finland. All that treaty ever did was to get rid of foot mines that we're designed to be planted around a heavy tank mine to make the whole deal difficult to disassemble. Now as our mines are easily disassembled, it just kind makes attacking here easier. So completely opposite outcome is very probable than what was intended.
[+] [-] Joeboy|13 years ago|reply
My understanding is that manual, low-tech demining is not actually that dangerous. It requires some training and caution, but generally speaking anti-personnel mines aren't likely to do you much damage if approached carefully from the right angle.
Whereas the approach of getting machines to jump up and down randomly is expensive, likely to lead to a false sense of security and may even cause mines to get pushed into positions that make them more dangerous.
You could get a lot of Afghan workers enthusiastically doing low-tech demining for not that much money. Every now and again one of them would lose a finger or two but maybe that's not such a bad outcome considering the alternatives. People tend to get much more excited about expensive, higher tech solutions because they're sexier and the people who develop them (often the same people that made the mines in the first place) are better at selling them.
[+] [-] ThomPete|13 years ago|reply
The semen would be spread out over an area and then wherever there was landmines it would turn red. The other area would stay green.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aresa_Biodetection
[+] [-] unknown|13 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] melling|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] varjag|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ChuckMcM|13 years ago|reply