The Board of Selectmen approved funding last month for a new highly sophisticated line painting device that officials say will transform how Parks and Recreation personnel lay down the hundreds of lines at the more than 40 playing fields they manage. The new device, called a “Swozi,” dramatically reduces the time required to paint field lines and does so more accurately, drastically reducing the man-hours for this important task.

According to Parks and Recreation Director Rick Maynard, the estimated cost savings in reduced man-hours indicate the device will pay for itself in saved labor and materials relatively quickly.

“It’s a pretty awesome machine. For example, without this machine, it takes two guys about three hours to set up a field for the first time in the spring…this machine can do that in half an hour. If you multiply that by 20-something fields, fields like lacrosse and soccer, that’s a huge savings to the town in man-hours,” said Maynard. “The guys don’t even have to physically move it. For example, at Calvin Leete, there are multiple fields, so you can just program in what fields you want painted, and it will do it all by itself. Tony Annicelli, our park supervisor, did some calculations, and his estimate is that between man-hours and paint, because we’ll use less paint than what we normally use in the manual machines, we think we’re going to be able to pay for it in less than three years, roughly.”

According to Maynard, at least 20 fields in Guilford require intricate line painting by his department, and more than 40 fields require some level of field painting.

“The beauty of it is the guys don’t have to sit there watching it. While the machine is lining the field, the guys can be doing weed whacking, using trim mowers, picking up litter. They don’t have to sit and watch it; they can’t leave and go to another site, but all of the other necessary tasks and work can get done. One of the coolest things about this, I was pretty excited to tell the Board of Selectman this, when we were watching it demonstrated while it set up a field at Chittenden Park, it did a corner of the soccer field, did the other corner and then took off for another area. I said to the sales guy, ‘It didn’t do the corner kick area; why didn’t it do that?’ He said, ‘Well, it knows the paint is wet and will get on the tire and lay streaks, so it knows to go somewhere else and paint until the paint is dry, and then it comes back and finishes the corner kick areas.’ Isn’t that incredible?”

The device works via GPS and is completely autonomous, according to Maynard. Workers simply set the device up, turn it on, and can then devote themselves to other tasks, saving significant hours across the playing seasons.

“It runs by GPS, so the guys will have an iPad and program in every field. Once it’s programmed in, it lays out each entire field. Everything, not just the rectangle of the field. For example, a soccer field, it will paint the corner kick areas, the goal areas, the middle circle. It makes a perfect circle. So, once you program it in, it keeps that info, and you just enter the data, and it takes over,” said Maynard. “

Other features include its adaptability to receive paint in a manner that allows staff to simply place a five-gallon bucket into the machine rather than pouring paint into a reservoir or other container. Its accuracy in laying down the lines also saves paint, according to Maynard.

Another feature of the device, manufactured by Turf Robotics, is the ability to switch over to a manual setting, allowing staff to paint by pushing the device should the need arise.

“This version has a handlebar on it, so if, for some reason, the guys needed to manually push it, they could. Other brands didn’t have that feature,” said Maynard. “Also, we directly insert a five-gallon bucket that we get from our supplier. That avoids having to pour it into the machine, like other brands, and that avoids spillage and saves on costs there as well. It also has an actuator where the paint comes out, and it adjusts to the undulations of the surface of the field. So, if the field is bumpy or wavy, it doesn’t matter; it automatically adjusts for that so you have perfectly straight unwavy lines every time. It really is an amazing machine.”

Maynard added, “This will save labor, time, and money. We are very grateful that the Board of Selectmen approved the funding for this.”