The NTU Mine Shoe detects and avoids landmines

You'd be hard pressed to sign most people up for land mine detection duty with this or any other kind of device (except maybe the mine detecting robot), but with untold millions of undetonated live mines buried just beneath the surface (and thousands of civilian fatalities and maimings yearly), the Nanyang Technological University-developed NTU Mine Shoe design represents a promising development in mine clearing technology. The six legs of the shoe detect mines and kick up before triggering the detonation mechanism. Granted, citizens of most poorer nations that suffer the worst from leftover mines probably probably won't be able to afford the expected $800 for each pair, but we have a feeling this is more intended for mine sweeping teams to do their job a little more safely, but on the cheap.

[Via seihin-world, thanks Tom]

[skype_fan @ Dec 19th 2005 1:06AM]

Make it simply, deploying land mines should be a crime, people found guilty have to clean them during their prison time. If they blow up, no problem. They spread this crap in the first place. Same goes for production of land mines = crime too.

[Andrew @ Dec 19th 2005 1:06AM]

Save the penguins! Deploy more landmines: http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/americas/09/27/falklands.penguins.reut/

[Jon @ Dec 19th 2005 1:06AM]

skype_fan, I don�t see how making it a crime would have any impact at all. Those placing land mines these days include:
1) first world state actors (most of whom do a fairly good job of accounting for and clearing landmines these days) whose landmines are generally not much of a civilian hazard (think demilitarized zones);
2) third world state actors, who have sovereign immunity; and
3) various rebel groups, who can deploy land mines for just a few dollars each. In what jurisdiction do you intend to pass a law that would deter these actors? Is the threat of jail really going to impact a 12 year old child soldier or marxist guerilla in sub-saharan Africa?

I�m not trying to be mean. I don�t have a solution myself and I�d surely love to see one.

[skype_fan @ Dec 19th 2005 1:06AM]

@Jon,

isn't it funny that people can spend several years in Guantanamo without clear accusation and standard trial ? It is even possible to invade other nations by claiming they might have WMD. So then why it shouldn't be possible to make manufacturing mines a crime ? There is an international war tribunal in Den Hague, what's the problem to charge people with crimes there ? As much we should make chemical weapons a crime land mines should fall into the same category. It is nowadays not a big problem to track war crimes. And plenty of people have been brought forward for trial, all we have to do is public pressure on the politicians.

I agree that just making it a crime won't stop people doing it, but when they do it, the rules are clear. Chase after them as long as they are alive. Put him in the database and when he travels he will ring a bell. Think what happens if the guy who runs a company that produces mines will be hand cuffed in Paris at the airport when he enters the EU ? How about a soldier how did deploy mines in a foreign country ends up on the Interpol list as much as a car thief ends up there too.

It would be a clear message that we don't want such people on our territory. And the more nations join the less space for such people to go.

All these mechanism do exist for much smaller crimes (some not even crimes). So lets use them for the real bad guys too :)

[Jon @ Dec 19th 2005 1:06AM]

Skype, the international criminal court or various war crimes tribunals would not have the slightest impact on the actors who are placing the civilian targeted land mines in africa or southeast asia. I repeat, what does a marxist rebel living in a chaotic, war-torn nation where civil order has broken down have to fear from a court in the Hague? If they're caught by local authorities, they are simply shot. How do you add additional deterrence on top of that for simply the use of a particular type of weapon? We'll use Interpol to chase these people forever? Are you crazy*? People can put together a land mine with a couple of dollars worth of generally available materials. Then it's buried in the ground. Are you imagining a CSI-like team of forensic scientists to come in to try to track down the anonymous land-miner? In Chad or the Sudan?




*Judging by your reference to Guantanamo and WMDs in your first couple of sentences above, I'd say that's a given - the relevance to anything written on this page is what, exactly? One sign of mental illness is when one's thoughts invariably run down the same well-trod paths regardless of the topic at hand. A post on orange juice production after the hurricanes - WMD! A post on best buy's new return policy - Guantanamo! Seriously, get help! :)

[skype_fan @ Dec 19th 2005 1:06AM]

Jon

for you the little guys are the bad guys, for me the big guys are the bad guys. Lets first start with the ones we really can catch cause they do the crime in front of us. Go after the corporations that produce and the guys we easily can track down first(Cause the even report proudly on CNN about what they do). The few guys in the jungle you can get later on. They are no big harm, others are much more harm and pain to the world ;-) Start with them first.

The ones you mention shouldn't be a problem afterwards as we can see with Guantanamo it's no problemo to fly over grab some guys put them somewhere till they rotten. So I guess my reference to this is valid no ? Abdul from his small village in Afghanistan we can catch so why not little Ramon the marxist :D

Maybe it's because some people make big money with this land mines (and are likely not marxists after all :D) ?

Inventing stuff to clean up later is nice, but
if we ban WMD (make possession a crime against humankind), same for chemical weapons and land mines things get pretty easy no ? If you think people who consider these things war crimes need help, well then I might need help. But I guess I'm not the only one who is against this stuff.

I do know that the only guys who get put in front of the courts are the ones who don't work for the side that is currently running the show. But this might change one day soon :D

[wxrman @ Dec 19th 2005 1:06AM]

um... not to interrupt the international debate here...

but I was thinking it would be my luck to get both shoes locked together, trip forwards on my face...and find a land mine with my chin.

...then what do you do?

[Curious @ Dec 19th 2005 1:06AM]

Just want to know how the person who wear it is going to walk. From the design, I can see the width of the shoe is wider than the usual. It is uncomfortable to wear and walk properly with it if the minesweeper does not have a certain leg length to accommodate the distance between the legs. Do you have a picture of a person wearing it and performing the task? That would be great if the product had been tested and presented with visual elements for viewers.
Thank you

[Martin Tibbitts @ Dec 19th 2005 1:06AM]

This is why it may not be the wisest career to be an indiscriminate beta tester :P

Martin Tibbitts

[no_incentive @ Dec 19th 2005 1:06AM]

No one other than perhaps international peacekeeping groups and the like will ever care about landmines unless:

a) the mines are on land that is desirable enough in one way or other that they would go through the trouble of clearing it of mines

b) someone with a lot of power and/or influence makes a big stink about mines, and even then it would probably only be a somewhat specific instance

c) the mines are somehow hindering the collection of oil :P (see A).

I may have missed something, but you get the general idea. No one who *also* has the powere to actually do something about it is going to care altruistically; there has to be something in it for them. This is the way the world works. There are great scientists out there who can invent ways to get rid of mines already planted, but the ones there are going to stay, and more importantly, they are still going to be made. Mines have been proven an effective and cheap deterrent to intrusion, and I doubt the military-industrial complex that helps to produce them is going to lose any sleep at night over it.