Afghani designer Massoud Hassani invented a wind powered bamboo minesweeper that can potentially save thousands of lives. Mine Kafon is a revolutionary landmine clearer/detonator that is very cheap to make, and could save many lives in countries troubled by landmines.

Massoud Hassani grew up in Afghanistan. As a child him and his brother used to build small roller toys. The two boys would take the small toys out in the hills to play with them, but as the wind would pick up the toys, they would roll faster than they could run. Eventually the boys would have to let the wind take their toys, because the land was covered in millions of land mines. Hassani explained that some kids, would attempt to get their toys, but the consequences to that choice where often fatal.

Hassani fled from Afghanistan at the age of 14. During his graduate studies at Design Academy in Eindhoven, the 25 year old took the same idea that he had as a boy and scaled up his childhood toy by twenty times while adding tools and strength to withstand the power of the explosion.

Although Afghanistan only has 10 million land mines on record, Hassani says there are more land mines in Afghanistan than there are people, up to 30 million in a country with a total population of 26 million.

Robots have been used in the past as remote detonators, but all too often soldiers are required to carry out the dangerous job of locating and removing landmines. This giant bamboo ball however, named Mine Kafon, facilitates safe landmine removal.

The Mine Kafon Bamboo Minesweeper is made from inexpensive bamboo sticks, biodegradable plastic plates and metal, and is designed to be blown around in the wind detonating landmines in its path. Each device has a GPS tracking device linked to a website to show which areas have been cleared.

As the bamboo minesweeper rolls around the ground it activates and sets off any deadly landmines on its path.

Made of 70 bamboo legs, a metal sphere and biodegradable plastic "feet", each one is relatively cheap to produce and can withstand the impact of up to 4 bombs before being self destroyed.

Several countries such as Angola and Afghanistan have many untouched landmines just waiting to go off, and this is a huge concern as many innocent people, particularly children, are affected by these unseen bombs, even years after wars have ended.

Working with the Dutch Explosive Disposal Ordnance Unit, Hassani tested the design earlier this year.

Early prototypes of the Mine Kafon would explode to pieces along with the detonation of the bomb. Now, Hassani has designed a GPS integrated Mine Kafon Bamboo Ball that will not explode when the mine goes off, the ball will continue to roll to the next mine to release the detonation.