Content provided by Turf Tank
The City of Round Rock, Texas, has been using the Turf Tank line marking robot for three years now to provide professional-quality lines on all the fields at the Round Rock Multipurpose Complex. The robot proved to be a real help at the facility as it could easily be programmed to paint any imaginable field of any size.
“We have a 10-field facility, and with the Turf Tank we managed to paint all the regular fields: soccer, football, flag football, rugby, lacrosse” said Brian Stillman, sports facilities and operations manager, City of Round Rock Texas. “But, in addition to that, we also have a few special layouts. We’ve hosted the World Quidditch Championship; we have goaltimate, a version of Ultimate Frisbee; and for all of these which were not preprogrammed, our staff sent diagrams, dimensions, and the engineers at Turf Tank built all of these into the programming for us.”
Easily switching the fields with the tablet
The facility hosts numerous sports events throughout the year, and thus the staff needs to regularly change the field layout to fit the schedule for the week.
“We’ve had weeks when we needed to paint 40-plus fields in a one-week period to get ready for the weekend,” said Stillman. “The change back and forth between the different sports and different layouts is as easy as going into the tablet that controls the robot, selecting the sport that you want, getting the field aligned as you need it, hitting the green button, and letting the robot do its magic.”
Being more efficient
Ever since the staff made the switch from manual line marking to a robotic solution, they optimized their work, saving time and painting their fields faster. In their previous setup, a 3-person team would need two hours to complete a 11v11 soccer field, pulling all the strings, doing the measurements, and painting the fields.
“Now, with the Turf Tank, that’s a 1-man job who manages the robot, gets it ready to go and paints that same soccer field in 25 minutes,” said Stillman.
As the users do not need to be physically present with the robot all the time, they could be more efficient doing other jobs while the robot paints the fields. That also means that they could simply protect themselves from harsh weather conditions, staying in the shade, during hot summers, or keeping warm during cold winters.
Reducing paint consumption
Apart from the time savings, the robot also helps the organization reduce its paint consumption. As the staff manages five natural grass fields and five synthetic turfs, they use both natural grass paint and synthetic turf paint provided by Turf Tank. “We probably buy one third less the amount of paint we previously did,” Stillman added.
