Ratepayers to save $30K per year with new line-marking robot

A new robot line marker, the first of its kind to be operated in Australia, is set to transform how groundskeepers operate in Sydney.

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A new line-marking robot is cutting the grass of old-school groundskeepers as it slashes the time and cost of preparing Sydney’s sporting fields.

The first of its kind to be operated in Australia, the Intelligent One GPS-guided robot is set to create white-line fever as it marks soccer fields in 30 minutes — instead of six hours by hand — and, in the process, uses only three litres of paint, a whopping 12 litres less than usual.

Cumberland Council’s new line-marking robot in action at Merrylands Oval this week. Picture: Troy Snook

Affectionately known to its operators as “Kermit”, it also marks rugby league and rugby union fields in about 40 minutes, instead of 5 to 6 hours, and one of its operators describes it as like “driving a remote-control car by two”.

“It’s amazing what it can do,” Lidcombe Oval head groundskeeper Bradley Egan said as he demonstrated the robot’s precise line marking.

“Aside from not recognising a fence, it doesn’t miss a beat after you’ve mapped the field, which takes about 10 minutes.

Lidcombe Oval head groundskeeper Bradley Egan operates “Kermit” as Merrylands Oval. Picture: Troy Snook

“It’ll take a bit of getting used to for some of the older blokes who work in maintenance at the council, but it’ll make our jobs a lot better now.”

Bought by Cumberland Council for $66,000 to line mark 110 of its 140 sportsgrounds, the new technology is projected to save ratepayers about $30,000 a year. No job losses are expected to occur as it is rolled out.

Old school: Manual marking a sports field.

Council general manager Hamish McNulty said the time savings — which also include marking an athletics field in two hours, instead of two days — would “free up sportsground staff to focus on other maintenance works”.

The Intelligent One robot, created by American company Turf Tank, is widely in the US and Europe to mark sporting fields.