THE CHALLENGE
The River’s Edge Park in Roanoke, Virginia is a perfect spot for outdoor activities, but maintaining such a large area proved too much to handle for a team of just three people.
THE SOLUTION
The team decided to bring on board a new member, the Turf Tank robot “Puff”, which proved to be essential to their operations. The robot helped them release the time pressure, be more efficient, and even open the doore for exciting projects for the community.
River’s Edge Sports Complex is a large park in Roanoke, Virginia, popular for the variety of sports activities it offers. Will Cole is the turf manager for the park and together with his team, he is responsible for 11 athletic fields which span over 29 acres across the park. Maintenance of such an area became quite challenging for a staff of only three people. But that changed in 2021 when a new member joined the team – the Turf Tank Robot “Puff”!
TIME SAVINGS AND MULTITASKING
In the past it used to take the team around three hours to paint a soccer field. Stringing out and using the measuring tape to get the correct locations of the lines was a time-consuming task, which put a lot of constraints on their time.
But now, the trustworthy Puff Robot took a load off their shoulders. The robot paints the fields in under 25 minutes, all by itself, and gives the staff more time to focus on other maintenance tasks.
PAINTING A SOCCER FIELD
Manual marking in the past
- 3 people
- 3 hours
- 5 gallons of paint
Marking with Turf Tank
- 1 person
- 5 minutes setup
- Field ready in 25 minutes
- 2 gallons of paint
“We can be painting a soccer field, but in the meantime we could also be setting goals out or filling divots in one of our fields with the Turf Tank. That kind of helps us get those small details that sometimes with a small staff that we have here, we wouldn’t be able to get normally.”
60% PAINT SAVINGS
Paint consumption is another aspect where the robot shows more efficiency compared to the traditional line marking methods Will used in the past.
Turf Tank helps with labor, but it also helps with materials”
Will Cole, Turf Manager, River’s Edge Park
To manually paint an 11v11 soccer field, Will would require around five gallons of paint, but now the consumption dropped to just two gallons of paint. Thanks to the robot’s consistent speed and spraying pressure, it ensures every line on the field gets the same quantity of paint and reduces the paint consumption. Of course this also has a big impact on the aspect of the field, as all lines will end with the same brightness and same professional quality.
Puff is a real mascot for the River’s Edge Park, proudly displaying its center location inside the Blue Ridge Mountains. Puff recently changed her googly eyes for the Blue Ridge Mountains design.
BEYOND SPORTS LINES
With Turf Tank anything is possible. Me and my team, we thought it would be just a great salute to the 4th July fireworks.”
Will Cole, Turf Manager, River’s Edge Park
Will and the Roanoke team like to be at the forefront of technology, so they decided to push the limits of robotic line marking and see the robot in contexts beyond painting sports fields. For the 4th July celebrations they decided to get Puff to paint the American flag, and give the community a unique fireworks show.
The Turf Tank development team was happy to take on the challenge, so they worked together on programming the design into the robot’s software.
“The attention to detail and the support we have with the Turf Tank it’s just world-class. It doesn’t get much better than Turf Tank.”
Will used the robot to paint endzone letters for the Youth Football Championship game.
Overall, the River’s Edge turf management team is glad they have the robot Puff to assist them in their tasks, and maintain all the fields in the area. It made the job easier, helped them save time and be more efficient to create the perfect spaces for the community to practice sports.