Being a design engineer and loving all things in this area i was thinking a few months ago about IEDs in war zones.
I have not beem to war, or know anyone, but have watch our war and various other footage.
I think i have a cheap, fast and simple way of creating safe routes and detiring the use of IED.
How and what should i do about it?
I dont want to develop it any further. I think its a simple process.
What is it
Get out of there
It depends what you want to achieve I guess.
If all you want to do is share your idea for the good of those in combat then I'd suggest finding companies that work in this sector and
approaching them with a prepared set of plans.
If you want commercial/financial gain from it then you'd do well to think about registering a design, prior art, patent etc to protect your idea
before you share it with anyone.
What about sharing it on here and drawing on the broad range of skills/experience to test the theory a bit?
Not really profit as i see that a little morbid. Recognision would be the best i can hope for.
Ill see what the feedback is on here by the end of the day. I may just post the idea up on here, let you lot tear it apart!
Although i think its a solid solution.
Contact the army, who else?
If I were you, I would not post it on here. Although you want recognition, there is ALWAYS someone out there who wants the financial gain and will
happily steal your idea, market it, patent it and claim it their own and the financial gain that comes with it.
Nice to see that someone has an idea and their first thought is the safety of others before their own need for money. Dont see much of that nowadays,
My hat off to you!!
Mine clearing is not a new technology.
I guarantee that your idea, or something similar will have been thought of before and tried.
Two things I will add.
The forces in an explosion are absolutely massive. Your idea may well 'work' to detonate the IED, but that may be all. A little petrol
garden rotovator would do the job. But why are they not used? Because of whats needed behind it.
An explosive device can easily lift several tons several feet very quickly.
Second thing, the best way to clear a minefield or IED is to use a #ahem# volunteer.
Either to clear the item or to be used as colatoral damage. Perhaps a job for those on death row?
EDIT: If its radio controlled cars, then I had that idea years ago. 
[Edited on 5/12/12 by balidey]
quote:
Originally posted by balidey
I guarantee that your idea, or something similar will have been thought of before and tried.
Design it
Patent it
Promote it
quote:
Originally posted by balidey
Mine clearing is not a new technology.
I guarantee that your idea, or something similar will have been thought of before and tried.
Two things I will add.
The forces in an explosion are absolutely massive. Your idea may well 'work' to detonate the IED, but that may be all. A little petrol garden rotovator would do the job. But why are they not used? Because of whats needed behind it.
An explosive device can easily lift several tons several feet very quickly.
Second thing, the best way to clear a minefield or IED is to use a #ahem# volunteer.
Either to clear the item or to be used as colatoral damage. Perhaps a job for those on death row?
EDIT: If its radio controlled cars, then I had that idea years ago.
[Edited on 5/12/12 by balidey]
If it's hovercraft then it worked in Die Another Day!
Cheers,
James
Go for it, whats the worst that can happen ? It don't work, whats the best that can happen ? Lives may be saved.
Go for it.
BUT as others have said don't tell us ( or anyone else for that matter ) about it till its up and running. To many intelectual property theives
out there.
The very best of luck to you, especially if it saves our guys in the war zones.
I'd suspect that Baliday is right... but you never know.
There's not a lot of "new ideas" out there but you might have one. What there definatly is out there, is someone that will steal the
idea given half chance.
I'd forget "not doing it for money" though. If you don't profit from it then someone else will! You can always donate the procedes
to good causes later.
OK, my comments may have sounded a bit negative, it wasn't meant to be.
What I wanted to do was highlight that there are hundreds of people all over the world that have been working on this 'area'. OK you may
have come up with a novel approach to it, but you could spend years and thousands of pounds to then suddenly find out Mr Smith patented the idea in
1976. Not saying that will be the case.
We are not strangers to litigation as we are on the locostbuilders site.
So I truly hope you do have an idea that can combat this problem. And if you do, good luck.
But I do have a great 'I told you so' dance I keep for special occasions at work.
I am working as a design engineer doing explosive protection equipment for the last few years, there are loads of absolutely crack pot idea produced
in the sector (so of which have made money and been a commercial success).
You can only give it a go and see if anyone will buy into the principle. British MOD mainly like throwing money down a hole to anyone with a Dr in
their title for no results at all, so maybe the more crackpot the better!
New MOD mine clearance vehicles they are testing have 4 inch thick armour steel on the under side and are still jumping 3 feet, as all terrorists do
is increase the explosive quantity in the mine to counter any extra armour. Anti human mines are not designed to kill, that is the last thing the
enemy want, it is all about creating casualties the opposition have to look after in the field. It is not a pleasant game.
Google Aigis Blast protection if you want to see a few of the things we do and what is already on the market. We also do explosive testing to get
products certified into the market if that is any help when things are up and running.
Good luck
Matt
If you write your idea on a letter, seal it, post it to yourself, receive it and leave it unopened you can use the post stamp date as copyright proof of your idea because the post date is legally reliable, i think i saw this on qi or something. As long as the envelope doesn't look tampered with.
quote:
Originally posted by vanepico
If you write your idea on a letter, seal it, post it to yourself, receive it and leave it unopened you can use the post stamp date as copyright proof of your idea because the post date is legally reliable, i think i saw this on qi or something. As long as the envelope doesn't look tampered with.
Don't give details on here or anywhere else. By the time you get it into operation, the IUD merchants will have countered it.
Cleverest protection idea I ever heard of was using what is basically tarmac with cork mixed in as ad hoc armour for merchant ships, apparently weight for weight it is 90% as good as WW2 era rolled armour plate.
quote:
Originally posted by bi22le
Being a design engineer and loving all things in this area i was thinking a few months ago about IEDs in war zones.
I have not beem to war, or know anyone, but have watch our war and various other footage.
I think i have a cheap, fast and simple way of creating safe routes and detiring the use of IED.
How and what should i do about it?
I dont want to develop it any further. I think its a simple process.
As others have said, keep it secret and try and find a way to date your idea just incase.
If you know anyone in the industry that you can trust it might be worth discussing it with them first to see if they think it will work or if
it's been done before.
Contacting the Army directly will probably be a massive waste of time, you need to contact a technical department of the MoD if you want to go through
that sort of result and see if you can be put in touch with an engineering team. Your best bet if you want to try and bypass the beraucratic elements
is to try and write to someone at the place where they test tanks and artillery, I can't think what it's called at the moment, but it's
were most of the Army testing is done.
If your idea is a product then you could try contacting all the militry contractors, or you could go to procurement (search DE&S on the MoD).
Thanks for all of your help and advice people.
I have enough leads and details to get going on with.
Special thanks to the people that have sent U2U offering your help and particular advice leads for contact.
If its floored then Ill post my idea up on here. If it seems to float then you may hear about it on the news. If I run out of time and cant take it
any further Ill post it on ebay!!
FWIW the military have an open call for technology ideas like this, the centre for defence enterprise should help you nail this, they provide grants
and work with you at pretty much any stage...
http://www.science.mod.uk/engagement/cde/working_with_cde.aspx
Going to their procurement or contractors will get you nada, from experience.
[Edited on 5/12/12 by coyoteboy]
The vast amount of research and feasability studies is carried out by Qinitiq and or DSTL. Don't know if these have points of contact for mad cap
ideas.
There is a bit of research going on at the moment where the device (IED) is saturated in Liquid Nitrogen - 196 deg, to cool the device below -80 deg
(I think) which will render it in operable and can be safely handled and disposed of.
Cheers
Nige
Best idea I can think of is to make the politicians that get involved in such things read a history book. They would then have realized that Afghanistan historically has always been something of an autonomous anarchy. We lost a whole army virtually without trace there in the 1800s. If that wasn't enough there's the USSR's intervention in the 1980's. It's an unwinable situation and we shouldn't be there. Also we're neither an economic nor military superpower anymore and we can't afford it.
quote:
Originally posted by skodaman
Best idea I can think of is to make the politicians that get involved in such things read a history book. They would then have realized that Afghanistan historically has always been something of an autonomous anarchy. We lost a whole army virtually without trace there in the 1800s. If that wasn't enough there's the USSR's intervention in the 1980's. It's an unwinable situation and we shouldn't be there. Also we're neither an economic nor military superpower anymore and we can't afford it.