WorldofArun
Mine Kafon - De-miner from the Afghan war
Massoud Hassani (Dutch, born Afghanistan 1983) Mine Kafon wind-powered deminer. 2011. Bamboo and biodegradable plastics Gift of the Contemporary Arts Council of the Museum of Modern Art.
Massoud Hassani’s wind-powered land minesweeper, the Mine Kafon, was inspired by the handmade toys from his childhood growing up in the desert north of Kabul, Afghanistan. As a boy, Hassani and his brother would fashion small paper toys to roll in the wind, racing them across the local fields. Years later, as a student working in the Netherlands, Hassani designed a much larger bamboo-legged, dinner-plate-footed, tumble-weedy, dandelion-like device that’s still light enough for the wind to take it across mine fields, but weighty enough to detonate the concealed mines in its rolling path.
Hassani’s environmentally friendly device is made with low-cost materials and biodegradable plastics, and a GPS tracker inserted in the core allows it to chart the cleared areas. While the average cost for the deactivation of a single mine ranges from $300 to $1,000 U.S., each Mine Kafon is designed to cost about $50 and withstand as many as four explosions and keep rolling. When it does stop, replacement parts can be added or the remaining unexploded components can be reused in a new device.
It’s hardly necessary to mention the evils of land mines; we’ve all read accounts and seen images of their appalling affects on innocent civilians across the globe—children especially. The statistics are staggering. According to the United Nations, in Afganistan alone there are 10 million unexploded land mines. So to create a life-saving device inspired by child’s play and send it riding on the wind is to fly in the face of a world out of balance; it is an act of poetic justice—or design justice.
Source: www.moma.org/
The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan in New York City. It was established on November 7, 1929; 85 years ago and has been important in developing and collecting modernist art, and is often identified as the most influential museum of modern art in the world. Considered by many to have the best collection of modern Western masterpieces in the world, MoMA's holdings include more than 150,000 individual pieces in addition to approximately 22,000 films and 4 million film stills.
Mine Kafon - De-miner from the Afghan war
Massoud Hassani (Dutch, born Afghanistan 1983) Mine Kafon wind-powered deminer. 2011. Bamboo and biodegradable plastics Gift of the Contemporary Arts Council of the Museum of Modern Art.
Massoud Hassani’s wind-powered land minesweeper, the Mine Kafon, was inspired by the handmade toys from his childhood growing up in the desert north of Kabul, Afghanistan. As a boy, Hassani and his brother would fashion small paper toys to roll in the wind, racing them across the local fields. Years later, as a student working in the Netherlands, Hassani designed a much larger bamboo-legged, dinner-plate-footed, tumble-weedy, dandelion-like device that’s still light enough for the wind to take it across mine fields, but weighty enough to detonate the concealed mines in its rolling path.
Hassani’s environmentally friendly device is made with low-cost materials and biodegradable plastics, and a GPS tracker inserted in the core allows it to chart the cleared areas. While the average cost for the deactivation of a single mine ranges from $300 to $1,000 U.S., each Mine Kafon is designed to cost about $50 and withstand as many as four explosions and keep rolling. When it does stop, replacement parts can be added or the remaining unexploded components can be reused in a new device.
It’s hardly necessary to mention the evils of land mines; we’ve all read accounts and seen images of their appalling affects on innocent civilians across the globe—children especially. The statistics are staggering. According to the United Nations, in Afganistan alone there are 10 million unexploded land mines. So to create a life-saving device inspired by child’s play and send it riding on the wind is to fly in the face of a world out of balance; it is an act of poetic justice—or design justice.
Source: www.moma.org/
The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan in New York City. It was established on November 7, 1929; 85 years ago and has been important in developing and collecting modernist art, and is often identified as the most influential museum of modern art in the world. Considered by many to have the best collection of modern Western masterpieces in the world, MoMA's holdings include more than 150,000 individual pieces in addition to approximately 22,000 films and 4 million film stills.