The Robot That Makes Alabama Football Practice Even More Efficient

There are greater than 15 acres of turf that the Alabama athletics grounds crew is answerable for monitoring and manicuring across the Tuscaloosa campus. However every Monday in the course of the fall, the week begins out with the identical process that has to get achieved. 

Earlier than the Alabama soccer workforce heads outdoors Monday afternoon for its first follow of recreation week, the grounds crew is busy repainting the three Thomas-Drew follow fields. However because of a line-painting robotic invented in Denmark, they don’t seem to be too busy. 

The Turf Tank began out as a college mission for 2 classmates in Denmark and is now getting used at a few of the prime athletic division and sports activities packages the world over, together with at Alabama. In reality, UA truly has two robots to assist them paint the fields in Tuscaloosa. 

The three-foot tall robots are arrange with personalised tablets that gather knowledge from 17 satellites to the pre-programed specs of the fields in Tuscaloosa. The pill tracks the motion of the robots, tells it precisely the place to go, when to color and for a way lengthy. 

In response to assistant director of athletic grounds at Alabama Drew Charcandy, the Turf Tank has turned the Monday morning process of portray the follow fields into a way more environment friendly operation.

“It used to take six guys roughly 5 hours to color all three of our follow fields,” Charcandy mentioned. “Now we ship three guys and our two Turf Tank robots, and we’ll paint them in roughly three hours. So, one, that clears up three different guys to go and attain issues on different fields. After which, two, it’s additionally saving time.”

Charcandy has been working in turf administration for over 15 years. He spent almost a decade within the golf phrase, managing golf programs at nation golf equipment in Birmingham. He discovered quite a bit throughout that point, particularly whereas working via renovations at Vestavia Nation Membership, however missed the strain of preparing for giant video games and occasions. When a job opened up at among the best athletic nations in this system, he could not go it up.

“I imply, it is the College of Alabama, proper?” Charcandy mentioned. “It is the highest of the totem pole in every single place. So it is actually enjoyable to be right here and to offer enjoying providers for our pupil athletes, to guarantee that they’re protected on the fields they’re competing on.”

He is a part of a crew that oversees the preserving of the baseball and softball fields, soccer area, monitor and area advanced, soccer indoor and outside follow amenities and naturally Bryant-Denny Stadium. 

Turf administration is not a straightforward profession area as a physically-demanding job, lengthy hours and quite a lot of floor to cowl (actually), which why innovation and effectivity is so vital to Charcandy. 

“I feel one of many worst feedback you may have is, ‘We’ve all the time achieved it that manner,’” he mentioned. “Which means you are not open to newer issues.”

That is the place the Turf Tank is available in. Usually, two individuals must maintain a string taut in a protracted line whereas another person pushed a paint machine to color the road. This requires a number of individuals and in addition leaves room for human error. With the robotic, all it takes is one individual to program the robotic, load it up with paint and let it go. One robotic paints area one whereas the opposite paints area two, after which they concurrently paint area three.

Jeremy Patay serves as head of growth for the Turf Tank, serving to carry it over from Europe into the American market. Alabama was one of many early adopters of the product within the U.S. again in 2020.

“You may see some massive golf equipment or massive names like Alabama are innovators, they usually all the time wish to get higher situations for his or her gamers, for the video games,” Patay mentioned. “And one of many issues the robotic brings is consistency and accuracy, in order that everytime you follow otherwise you play a recreation on, you’ve gotten excellent strains.”

Alabama makes use of the Turf Tank on the soccer follow fields, soccer area for the top-five soccer workforce and on the monitor and area stadium regularly. For recreation days at Bryant-Denny, the crew nonetheless hand paints the sphere for now, however will use the robotic to color the stadium for varied occasions all year long. 

“It is a actually cool factor for us to see after we get these larger manufacturers are available as a result of it actually validates that there’s something right here,” mentioned Simon Christensen, head of selling for Turf Tank. 

Each the Turf Tank staff and Charcandy made certain to make clear that the robotic wasn’t changing human staff, as a substitute simply making their jobs simpler, extra environment friendly and constant. 

Alabama soccer head coach Nick Saban is a process-oriented man geared towards constant outcomes. It is why the Crimson Tide has gained six nationwide titles below Saban. It is why Alabama has been ranked No. 1 sooner or later within the season yearly since 2008. It is why Nick Saban has been sporting the identical model of straw hat at follow since 2007. 

Saban additionally acknowledges the worth in what off-field staffers do in behind-the-scenes roles that assist hold his program on the prime. Whether or not it is the athletic coaching employees, the diet employees, the tools guys, or the grounds crew on the lookout for improvements just like the Turf Tank.

“Nicely, you may’t have success with out ‘em, I can let you know that,” Saban mentioned. We’ve got an ideal workforce right here. All people contributes in a extremely optimistic manner… So I do not suppose you may have an ideal program if you do not have nice individuals in all these help roles.”

No. 2 Alabama will probably be away with this weekend at No. 20 Arkansas, which implies the grounds crew will not need to put in its regular 18-hour work day on a house recreation day. However relaxation assured, even with a giant primetime matchup scheduled with Texas A&M the subsequent week, the primary process on Monday morning will probably be organising the Turf Tank to get the follow fields prepared for one more week of Crimson Tide soccer. 

“We’re within the service trade of all our packages,” Charcandy mentioned. “I wish to give them the most effective product and the most effective probability to win.”