“It weighs about 70 kilograms and it’s moved by the wind. It has about 175 legs, sticking out of a core. It rolls along, and if it presses a land mine, it makes it detonate." Massoud Hassani describes the device he designed to clear mines. It's faster, safer and more than 100 times cheaper than traditional techniques.
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Growing up in Afghanistan, Hassani and his friends would make wind-blown toys – ingenious spheres or tubes made of simple materials that rolled across the desert. But the desert could be a dangerous place to play: years of conflict have left Afghanistan littered with lethal landmines.
Hassani moved to the Netherlands as a teenager and went on to graduate from Eindhoven’s celebrated Design Academy. Inspired by the wind toys of his childhood, he created a wind-powered device that trips land mines as it rolls. This award-winning invention, the Mine Kafon, has met with international acclaim. It will be exhibited at New York's Museum of Modern Art from April 2014.
Massoud Hassani’s website: massoudhassani.blogspot.nl