Cating lines in football fields? This is a job for robots now

Sean Ishin was a problem. The great director of Turf and Grounds for Galaxy and Dignity Health SPORTS Park 26 full -size training fields, two game fields and the warm -up field before he advanced in the Cochlla Valley Championship last winter. He had less than five days to do so.

Since it takes three people for nearly two hours to lie down and the paint border lines in only one field, mathematics said Ilten would not do that.

“It is not possible to do everything by hand,” he said.

So he decided to overcome the manual part and give the task to two robots, who managed to retreat and draw each field in about a quarter of the time when the human hands needed. Without robots, the largest professional football event in the United States in the United States was much smaller.

“There will be no possible way in humanity,” said Ilten.

What made it possible Grass tank,, GPS system around the large beach cooler size that can draw sports fields of any size for any sport. The girls of Jason Derridge’s ideas, a Atlanta -based businessman with a long history of using technology to create workplaces, were from restaurants and communications to shipping and sports.

The idea of using technology and robots to relieve the Earth’s heat from Striping Athletic Fields to Aldridge about nine years ago, while watching a “Shark Tank” Business Business Program with his son. He said he was old rituals needing a modern solution.

“Until returning to the Olympic Games in ancient Greece, they used to line up the corridors to run the enemy,” he said.

After months, he cooperated with Denmark developers, who were designed four years ago a first robot based on a similar concept, and in 2017, he sold the first grass tanks to the Sozo Sports complex in Yakima, Washing

Since then, TURF Tank has grown to a company of more than 200 employees, dozens of annual sales and 5,000 customers, including San Diego FC, Galaxy, LAFC, Angel City and eight teams from the American Football Association and hundreds of colleges, including Peppperdine, California Santa Barbara and Loyola Marymount. TURF Tank also drew the separate field logo in the MLB All-Star game last month in Atlanta.

Two other Denmarks – traqnology and TinymobileobotsThe company, whose robots were distinguished by more than two million fields all over the world – say similar services, as well as the Swiss company Suzy And Singapore fjdynamics. But Turf Tank claims to be the dominant force in the American market.

The grass tank robots, which reaches 132 pounds and can contain 5.3 gallons of paint, are controlled by computer computer and directing GPS technology associated with a laptop station, which acts as a reference point. All the user must do is enter the dimensions of the field – the length of the side lines, the width of the field – into a tablet and the robot does the rest in less than 24 minutes.

The concept of independent robots remains a difficult sale of people who used to do things by hand and not on a keyboard. Although it looks a good idea, most of the Earth’s guards should have been accurately convinced and reliable robots.

Aldridge tried to sell the University of Alabama on the technology of the Brynet-Dini Stadium on July. TURF TANK drew the horizontal and vertical lines without a problem, but the Earth’s crew manager was certain that he could not coincide with the accuracy and accuracy needed to paint retailers in the center of the football field. Al -Dridge took him to lunch, and when they returned, there were 160 perfect marks, every four inches width, two feet and 60 feet from the side lines.

Albama University said that the University of Alabama now has three robots, two athletics and one for internal fields.

Ilten was also more than suspicion of condemnation at first.

“I was skeptical when they reached me for the first time, just for how he did it. All of this is GPS. If something is on his way, will the rogue become?” He said. “But they took it out, and they clarified and measured the lines after completing this and they were within a centimeter.”

It was 2019, and he now has three robots in the Dignity SPORTS Park that he uses to line up at the main stadium of the football, Rajabi, Lacros stadium and the fields of surrounding football. (For Galaxy games, it is preferable to mark the stadium in the old way, with a cylinder from wheel to wheels, which allows him to use thicker and brighter coating.)

“It makes everything more efficient,” said Elton, who runs an employee from 20 to 20 minutes.

But the largest part of the TURF TANK customers do not come from major university teams. Saving time that robots bring to change life to high school owners and local garden administrators, who should often lined up in multiple fields in one day.

“It was a pain point. They went to school to know how to grow the grass. It was a field drawing of this part of the job that they really wanted to do, but it was a great necessity,” Aldridge, 48, said.

“It is like ice on the cake, right? Building a beautiful field, this is a type in terms of our robots.”

⚽ I have read the latest batch of football with Kevin Pacter. The weekly column takes you behind the scenes and sheds light on the unique stories. Listen to Baxter in this week’s episode of TheA corner of the podcast.