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.
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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 This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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