Snail Aid is very grateful to Mr. Visot and Mr. Ratha for their precious help at LOCOSTRA booth during the 11MSP in Cambodia. We hope to see you again soon!

Snail Aid will be present at the 11th Meeting of State Parties (MSP) to the Mine Ban Treaty in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, between the 28th of November and the 2nd of December 2011, promoting LOCOSTRA at the side event "Mine Action Partnership in Action" on behalf also of the University of Genova and PIERRE Trattori.

Unfortunately, time was too short to organise the transportation of LOCOSTRA machine in the country, but videos showing LOCOSTRA new features will be available. A range of new features is under development including automatic switch between the central and frontal steering systems, remote control by laptop, remote video system allowing the machine to be driven in thick vegetation more easily, ...

Thanks a million to Michal Przybylko for the excellent work he has done during his thesis.

We are very happy to congratulate with Michal Przybylko for having succesfully achieved the European Master in Robotics at the University of Genova with a thesis on the improvement of LOCOSTRA remote control system.

Thanks a million to Michal for the excellent work he has done.

Emanuela is back from 6 weeks in Thailand, Cambodia and Laos. During this time she had the chance to visit several mine action entities (mine action centres and NGOs) interested in buying LOCOSTRA.

Due to the overall presence of very thick vegetation, the prime use of LOCOSTRA would be in area preparation by vegetation cutting.

Thanks to LOCOSTRA agility (radious of curvature < 3m, achieved by double steering system) and FAE mulcher cutting capacities (grinding up to 200mm diameter trunks), LOCOSTRA plus FAE mulcher could be efficiently employed to selectively cut the vegetation before demining takes place, avoiding big trees protected by national law. Moreover, thanks to the low cost of deploying the machine (for short distances can be driven on board) and for running the machine (fuell consumption of 14 l/h when achieving a clearing rate of 1500m2/h), vegetation removal could be done on a large scale helping saving precious time.

The Thailand Mine Action Centre expressed desire for a demonstration of LOCOSTRA effectiveness in Thailand. We would be very happy to bring the machine in South East Asia and show its capabilities, but, due to the nature of the project (R&D project ended in May 2011), we are not able to cover the cost (approx. 12000€). If any of the entitiy that would be interested in using the machine is interested in sharing the costs of the demonstration, please contact us at snailaid@gmail.com or at the phone number +39 3331655089.

The paper on blast resistant wheels test is finally online on the Journal of Mine Action.

Unfortunately, the printed edition contains some mistakes, so please refer to the online version only, which has been corrected.

The paper can be read online here

We are happy to present the work done at Odero technical school in Genova on DISARMADILLO machine in two videos on the report page. We work keeps on going...

To all the people who have collaborated to LOCOSTRA project,

to all the people who have been bored with LOCOSTRA tales,

and,

to all the people who are curious about what LOCOSTRA is,

wellcome to the LOCOSTRA party!!!

The party will start on Saturday 18th of June around 6pm for a

big barbeque under the trees.

in "Lo Scoiattolo" hut near to Alessandria in Piemonte.

You can find directions here:

http://www.parcofaunisticoappennino.it/Mappe/Comeraggiungerci/tabid/274/Default.aspx

Everybody is invited to spend the night there, just write an

email to snailaid@gmail.com to let us know

The work on DISARMADILLO is coming to the end for this academic year.

The school is already finished but some last work on the remote control and the brakes is going on thanks to prof. Acquilino, the last year students and the Snail Aid team.

Disarmadillo assembled and almost ready:

We have updated few pictures in the Disarmadillo Gallery and we have thanked ISIBond in the team page for collaborating to the project by sending us two brake bands to mount on the rear stubaxles.

We are very proud to announce that LOCOSTRA is ready to be sold. at 50.000€. For more information please visit the LOCOSTRA page.

We are approaching a new trip with LOCOSTRA. This time, LOCOSTRA will attend the International Symposium on Humanitarian Demining that will be held in Sibenik, Croatia from the 26 and the 28 of April 2011.

LOCOSTRA will be exhibited together with other demining technologies in the in field demonstrtion at Gaj near to Skradin. To show what LOCOSTRA is capable of doing we prepared this video: