Latest news with #TurfTank
Yahoo
12-06-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
Turf Tank transforms field painting at Total Sports in NY
ROCHESTER, N.Y. (WROC) — If you're ever at Total Sports Experience early one summer morning, you might catch a glimpse of an unusual assistant on one of the many soccer fields. This little robot is called a 'Turf Tank.' Affectionally known to employees there as 'Frank' — the GPS-guided robot lines and paints athletic fields with centimeter accuract. There are 14 soccer fields at Total Sports Experience, half of them with double sets of lines, so the Turf Tank paints the equivalent of 21 fields every week. Management said it typically takes two guys about two hours to do the job. Turf Tank can do it in about a half hour. It can also paint a field from scratch, and all you have to do is pick a starting corner. 'We did a Gaelic football tournament here a few years back, and didn't have that field before lined or anything, but the tablet really just picked a starting point and let it go — and it painted it on it's own where it probably would've taken us a full day to paint it by hand,' Total Sports Experience General Manager Jamie Hammond said. Turf Tank was named one of the best inventions of 2024 by Time Magazine. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
11-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
City signs 'Turf Tank' agreement to improve athletic field maintenance
PLATTSBURGH — The City of Plattsburgh's new autonomous 'Turf Tank' robot will make painting athletic field lines more cost effective and less time consuming going forward. 'What this does is this gives us the ability to take our man hours for painting fields and cut it down, probably, to about a third to a fourth,' DPW Assistant Superintendent Andrew Durrin told city councilors at their work session June 4. 'Basically, program it with all your field layouts, push a button and one person stays with it to paint all the fields.' According to its website, the Turf Tank Two is a 'robotic field painter designed to mark all types of sports fields easier, faster, and more efficiently.' Durrin clarified that the robot will allow DPW employees to focus and allocate their time elsewhere during the busy summer months. For instance, Durrin said there is a lacrosse tournament Father's Day weekend and there are 12 fields that need to be painted by four to six workers over an entire week. He estimated it would normally take $21,000 worth of time and material to paint the fields themselves. With the robot, they're already saving money and time, he said. It would likely take just a day and a half for one person to use the robot and finish the fields, he estimated. 'The rental for this Turf Tank is $16,000 a year,' he said, which doesn't include the first year start-up fee of $1,700. 'So already you'd save $4,000 just on the lacrosse tournament, not counting soccer fields that we paint, baseball fields, football fields.' Councilors approved the rental contract for a Turf Tank at their meeting June 4. The contract runs for three years and will cost the city $16,000 per year, plus an initial $1,700 set up fee for a total of $49,700. There is $3,000 worth of paint also included in the rental agreement. Durrin said the city can opt out of the contract at any time, There's also a clause to extend the contract another three years at the same rate, he added. 'From what it was explained during the work session, this is going to save the city a considerable amount of money,' Ward 4 Councilor Jennifer Tallon said before voting to approve it. 'Yes, and if it doesn't, we can get out of it,' Mayor Wendell Hughes said. 'That's the important part. We do have an out.' Among the benefits of the robot, the Turf Tank can also paint lines on pavement. 'If we repave a parking lot, we can actually put everything into the robot's data collector, and then paint all of the line strips and the parking lot,' Durrin said. 'Then we don't have to have another company come up and pay them to paint the lines.'
Yahoo
07-06-2025
- Yahoo
Possum-sized robot aids South Burlington sports fields
SOUTH BURLINGTON, Vt. (ABC22/FOX44) – Since last year, the South Burlington Parks Division has used a GPS-guided miniature robot to paint its fields for sports and mark lines. The robot even has a name – 'Linus'. The City of South Burlington wrote in a Facebook post, 'Linus the line-striping robot can mark a soccer field in about half an hour, freeing up its human coworkers for mowing and other maintenance.' The City has put the robot to work at Veteran's Memorial Park in advance of practices, games, and other events. UVM nurses practice at state-of-the art 'virtual hospital' By contrast, the Gold Country Soccer League in California estimates that a human painter would take twice that time just for a touch-up and longer for a whole new painting from scratch. Fields need to be repainted as often as once a week during regular use, and painting all the lines for a football field is even more complex and time-consuming. The robot, a specialized model known as a Turf Tank, can paint any of over 120 patterns entered into its customized software. It can also estimate how much paint it will use in its operations in advance. The company claims the robot's precision means it uses as little as half the amount of paint that would be needed to complete the painting manually. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
USA Today
18-03-2025
- Sport
- USA Today
2025 MLS All-Star Game: Liga MX stars to face MLS again
2025 MLS All-Star Game: Liga MX stars to face MLS again Show Caption Hide Caption Video: Turf Tank helps MLS paint soccer fields Video: Turf Tank helps MLS paint soccer fields For the second year in a row and fourth out of five, a team of Liga MX stars will be the opponent in the MLS All-Star Game. MLS announced on Tuesday that the MLS All-Stars will face a team of Liga MX's best on July 23 at Q2 Stadium in Austin, Texas. The MLS vs. Liga MX format was first introduced in 2021 and 2022, with the MLS All-Stars coming out on top in both matches. The MLS All-Stars then took on Arsenal in 2023, with the Gunners winning 5-0. Last year, the match returned to its previous format, with Liga MX winning 4-1 at Field in Columbus. 'We are thrilled to once again host Liga MX at the 2025 MLS All-Star Game, showcasing the best talent from our leagues,' said MLS executive vice president Camilo Durana. 'It's an exciting match-up for the first-ever professional All-Star Game played in Austin, bringing a thriving on-field rivalry to the passionate Austin community and to fans around the world watching on MLS Season Pass on the Apple TV app.' Just like in previous years, a group of MLS All-Stars will face Liga MX stars the night before the match in the All-Star Skills Challenge, which will take place on July 22. "It is always a great honor for Liga MX to participate in an event like the MLS All-Star Game. It fills us with excitement to return to this stage to showcase the quality of our players and continue to connect with our fans in the United States,' said Liga MX director of operations, competition, and development Francisco Iturbide. 'I know that the All-Star teams of both leagues will offer a great showdown. We look forward to continuing to strengthen our sports rivalry with MLS.'
