First International Mine Detector Robots Competition

knabar writes: "From the site: The First International Mine Detector Robots Competition (RoboDeminer Contest 2002) Will be held in AmirKabir University of Technology (Tehran Polytechnic). Right now around the world, innocent children, men and women are killed and maimed by the vicious remains of wars, mines. As you are reading this, children are going orphan, women are widowed and men are mutilated by the horrible weapon. We founded this international robotic competition in hope of helping the world to get rid of one of its most dreadful nightmares."

Comments

Robot Wars

[Kris_J]

I wonder if any former Robot Wars entrants will enter this competition. Screwing up here makes the damage from Killalot's jaws of life look like a wet kiss.

Hmmm ....

[Sanga]

The first RoboDeminer Contest (RDC2002) will be held 19-21 Aug 2002 in
Amirkabir University of Technology (Tehran Polytechnic), Tehran, Iran.

They do not sound like the axis of evil they are made out to be.

The first step, stop using them.

[Bitsy Boffin]

The first step to ridding the world of landmines is to stop using them of course that would be so much easier if the USA would stop using them rather than thinking of increasing thier use.

Attack the cause.

[Bob_Robertson]

Governments plant mines. Why isn't anyone prosecuting the ones who gave the orders? They are known individuals, politicians and generals.

But no, we're stuck cleaning up their messes, and getting blamed ("technology caused this") by some for their decisions. "This technology is too dangerous!" Bogus.

There just isn't enough personal responsibility in the world, these thugs get away with murder daily.

Bob-

Re:Attack the cause.

[SagSaw]

" Governments plant mines. Why isn't anyone prosecuting the ones who gave the orders? They are known individuals, politicians and generals."

Prosecution will not make the mines disappear. No matter how many people you charge with warcrimes, someone still needs to clean up millions of unexploded munitions throughout the world. Better a robot than me.

Re:Attack the cause.

[Conor]

There is an international treaty banning the use of Land mines.For details see www.icbl.org . Here is and extract:

Each State Party undertakes never under any circumstances:

To use anti-personnel mines;

To develop, produce, otherwise acquire, stockpile, retain or transfer to anyone, directly or indirectly, anti-personnel mines;

To assist, encourage or induce, in any way, anyone to engage in any activity prohibited to a State Party under this Convention.

Each State Party undertakes to destroy or ensure the destruction of all anti-personnel mines in accordance with the provisions of this Convention. There are 50 countries in the World who have not signed this treaty, they include:

Afghanistan

China

Cuba

Iran

Iraq

North Korea

Libya

Myanmar (Burma)

Vietnam

Yugoslavia

The United states of America

The USA is also one of the World's biggest producers and exporters of Landmines.

So if you really want to do something to get rid of these terrible weapons, which mostly kill and maim innocent people, then write to your Congressman!

Landmines design

[pmenoud]

I'm sure specialists will go there to get some ideas on how to make mines harder to detect!

I just think of these engineers who design landmines... Do they have any way of "pretending" they're not killing civilians?

Support the campaign to ban landmines.

ps: I've just seen that another comment asking for the support of this campaign, was marked as off-topic!? I can't help thinking some people'd better stick to toys, and OS wars...

What happened to the robots?

[edwilli]

I thought this was a discussion about robots and not about the morality of using landmines?

my robot will...

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm still working on my robot woman,...she will be made to "serv" her master...heh heh heh

So do they blow up?

[TimFreeman]

The contest rules were unclear. Are the hollow hockey-puck like things real mines that will blow up your robot if you don't detect it, or just pieces of plastic?

A Challenge

[Conare]

I have been playing Minesweeper since '95 and I am the Gr3at3st! I will Hum!l!at3 any 5orry mine detecting robot out there! I challenge the winner of this competition. hUmAnZ R0C!

they're DETECTORS people!

[Anonymous Coward]

The robots that are built for anti-minefield work have two possible designs.. one, the small, inexpensive mass produced model that travels through the minefield, hitting the ground every few feet, and blowing up the mines. Or the other mine DETECTORS that find the mines and flag their location for either detonation via lengthy triggering apparatus (aka long stick) or for disarmament by a human technician.

This contest would definately not be about a machine that can find the mines... Hell, I could build a roboticized lawn aerator that works by remote/internal controls. It would have to be about autonomous machines that can be released and flag the location of whatever mines they find.

It just wouldn't be economically feasable to make robots that keep getting blown up. The mine detector with a mode of separate detonation (possibly a little cherry-bomb-esque detonator it could drop) is much cheaper. And probably more effective in the long run.

that's my $0.02