Explosive Cardboard

Explosive Cardboard

Millions of unexploded land mines remain buried across the world. Cheap to produce and with the ability to remain active for 50 years, these weapons are widespread and deadly. According to the United Nations, around 2,000 people are injured or killed by land mines every month. 40% of them are children.

Areas that are known to contain landmines are inaccessible. They prevent people from using the land for farming and can block routes to essential resources including fresh water, markets and medical care.

Detonating Land Mines

Large detonating vehicles have been developed to withstand multiple blasts. They can be employed to clear areas of the hazard and make it safe again. The trouble is that these bulky machines are expensive to use, too costly for many poor communities. They are also a limited resource, with priority given where the risk is highest.

C-Turtle – The Cardboard Solution

In response to this challenge, students at Arizona State University have developed an alternative solution. C-Turtle is a small, lightweight device. Made from cardboard and powered by a micro-computer, the design has turtle-like flippers that rotate and slowly propel it along the ground.

Cardboard is a light, yet robust material, which can cope with repetitive movement and moving across uneven ground. It is also a cheap and widely available material, which can be flat packed for ease of transportation, then assembled on site.

As it takes minimal pressure to detonate a land mine and the C-Turtle has enough weight to cause an explosion. A bomb would destroy the device, but at $50, it is significantly cheaper than the cost of a machine detonation, which would equate to around $500 per mine.

The students hope that the small and easy to transport C-Turtle could aid the widespread distribution of land mine detonation devices. Rural communities and other less accessible areas could be provided with a means of making their villages safer.

Cardboard Protection

When convincing potential customers of the merits of our cardboard packaging, we often state that such a robust material is ideal for protecting goods in transit. We’d not realised that cardboard could also help protect people from injury or death. We’re impressed by the cardboard design skills of these American students and hope the C-Turtle really can make a difference.