Disarmadillo moved its first steps driven remotely!

After few design iterations of the remote control unit, the final version is ready and working. 

The work goes on thanks to the very nice and constant support of prof. Gigi Acquilino, teacher at Odero technical technical high school, thanks to the involvement of Edoardo Del Bianco, who chosed Disarmadillo as argument of his bachelor thesis in mechanical engineering at the university of Genova and thanks to the partners who constantly support us.

We are particularly thankful to Carlo Navire, engineer at Isibond, who came to visit us recently to provide advises on the skid steering system.

The latest issue of the Italian magazine Focus Extra dedicated to Robots includes a small box about DISARMADILLO

 

On the 24th of April, LOCOSTRAv2 was presented at the 11th International Symposium Mine Action 2014 in Zadar. LOCOSTRAv2 is undergoing extensive pre-tests in Italy and is ready to be brought o the field

LOCOSTRA received interest also from the Croatian TV:

RTL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pUy_ar5I9DU&feature=youtu.be

HRT: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=glFGAI90fxc&feature=youtu.be

We are just back from the Saharawi refugee camps near Tindouf in South West Algeria. We have spent there three very intensive and fruitful weeks testing for the first time the Billy Goat Radio tool for Mine Risk Education (MRE).

We have to thank ASAVIM, the Association for Saharawi Mine Victims for supporting our mission in collaboration with Brimatech from Austria. We thank deeply all the other local partners: the Ministry of Culture and the actors: Mohamed, Maddi, Salamu, LQuar, Djamila; the staff of RASD radio; Action On Armed Violence, the Saharawi Campaign to Ban Landmines and the Saharawi Mine Action Coordination Office.

The mission was very successful and the tool seems very promising.

SpaceTech, a partner of the TIRAMISU project has produced a short video on the explosion tests we had on the 11th and 12th of July 2013 on two new designs of blast resistant wheels. 

 

The paper on the Study Land Release in Action on the Journal of mine Action has been published. It can be read online here 

A paper presenting major results from the study has been written with the help of Andy Smith, mine action specialist. The short version should be published in the next issue of the Journal of Mine Action, while a longer version with more details and results can be downloaded here.

The new International Mine Action Standards (IMAS) on Technical Survey (IMAS 08.20) have been released in March 2013. We are very pleased to read that they are addressing many issues also raised by the study  "Land Release in Action: In-field study of practices in use in six countries", in particular the need of differentiating between machines for clearance and machines for technical survey and the need of defining how to assess the performance of different assets for technical survey especially in terms of the extent to which the asset will preserve information associated with hazard items, the speed and cost with which the asset can undertake the technical survey function and the suitability of the asset in light of the surrounding environment, infrastructure and climate.

It's an incredible good news for the mine action community, hopefully paving the road to a larger use of LOCOSTRA!!

 

 

We are happy to share with you the thoughts of Prof. Pascal Zachary written in his paper "When Innovating, Go Slow" published on IEEE Spectrum on 14 Mar 2013.