MSU Prof Uses $78,000 Grant For Video Game to Help Children Avoid Landmines

Michigan State University professor Corey Bohil and his students were approached by California-based Golden West Humanitarian Foundation (Golden West) to develop a video game to help children and others in war-torn countries avoid death and injury from unexploded landmines and other explosives (also known as UXOs, or unexploded ordnance.)

Golden West is the only non-profit in the country that specializes in the removal of landmines and other unexploded ordnance in war-torn countries around the world. They also devote efforts to mine risk education.

"[Golden West] found us because we have a game specialization in the department," says Bohil, a visiting assistant professor in MSU’s Department of Telecommunication, Information Studies and Media who heads the project. "I think it demonstrates that things going on in the university have significant potential to impact the larger community, and that we have interest in solving real-world problems when opportunities present themselves."

The U.S. State Department’s Office of Weapons Removal and Abatement provided about $78,000 to fund the project, which came about because other methods of teaching children how to avoid UXOs were not effective.

Bohil is hopeful the game will be used with the One Laptop per Child Program, a project designed to develop inexpensive but rugged laptop computers that will provide learning opportunities for children in developing nations.

Source: Corey Bohil, Michigan State University

Writer: Suban Nur Cooley