These insoles adapt to any kind of footwear and absorb the shock wave produced by the mines that explode when stepped on. This was the development for which Mauricio Betancur Muñoz was awarded as the best innovator of the country under the age of 35.
After selecting 10 young Colombians, the recognition was awarded on May 13 in Medellin by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), one of the most important technology university in the world, through its MIT Technology Review Spanish Edition.
"Innovation is the requirement, which means that, besides being an inventive and novel product, it should also reach the market and have an impact on society," as explained by Mauricio, mechanical engineering graduate of Universidad EAFIT and manager at Tecnologías Marte.
According to Betancur, this invention that was made in collaboration with professor Edgar Alexander Ossa, member of the Engineering Materials research group, allows to absorb the shock wave produced by up to 50 grams of high explosives, the amount in a conventional anti-personnel mine. It seeks to minimize the damage, but if this is not possible because the explosive exceeds this amount, the main goal is to protect people from being more affected.
It took a year and a half to design the materials, do full scale tests with the support of the National Army of Colombia and to submit, test and evaluate about 20 models. The outcome was a set of comfortable insoles with a thickness of six millimeters and a weight of 90 grams and a sufficiently refined design that can be used by anyone.
"We did research on bio-mimetic or bio-inspired armors, a method based on biology principles and how nature works, for instance, the protection used by fish, reptiles and turtles, to improve its features compared to other materials and convert them into a product", as Mauricio states.
These insoles use protection similar to the scales of a fish with unidirectional fabrics that, while being flexible, have a rigid layer in between. They also resemble a turtle shell which is composed of soft and rigid materials to provide hardness against the impulsive load of an explosion while providing flexibility and capacity to absorb the impact.
Social Innovation
According to Mauricio, he has been aware of this problem since he was a child because he has lived in Rionegro in the Eastern part of Antioquia, the most heavily mined region located in the most mined department of Colombia, which is the second most affected country in the world by this problem.
For this reason, since he was an undergraduate student, he began to do research on robotic systems suitable to combat the use of anti-personnel mines. With the support of Universidad EAFIT and inspired by a personal passion, he continued his research and improved the prototypes to the point where all of that evolved into a company.
Although the insoles have not yet been tested in the field of operations, he notes that the aim is to optimize research and industrialize the product, supported by Ruta N, through the resources of the Science, Technology and Innovation Plan (CT+i, by its Spanish initials), which they obtained after winning a call for projects.
"We are going to make 100 pairs of anti- personnel mine insoles that will be sent to the most affected zones of the region as determined by Antioquia’s Governor. They will be available in 2016", he announced.
Further details:
Alejandro Gomez Valencia
Journalist from the Information and Press Department at EAFIT
Telephone number: 2619500 Ext. 9931