Matt Aposhian, COO of FireFly Automatix, is conducting a tour of the company’s warehouse in the industrialized part of the valley. In addition to showing off the impressive lineup of Firefly’s automated sod harvesters and driverless lawnmowers, he’s also pointing out the tens of thousands of parts that are fabricated, molded, welded, shaped, cut, bolted and painted right here on the premises to put the machines together.
When FireFly says its products are made in Utah, it means made in Utah.
“Steel and electronics come in one door,” says Matt, “fully functioning machines go out the other side.”
All of it a testament to the unlimited ingenuity of the human mind.
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That and the age-old desire to get out of work.
“Our engineers joke around,” Matt says. “They say they’re inherently lazy so they think of ways to do things easier.”
Then he adds, “It would’ve been nice to have all this around when I was a kid.”
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When the Aposhian kids — Matt’s three brothers and two sisters — were growing up, their father, Lawrence, ran a sod farm. Besides putting a roof over their heads and food on the table, the farm made sure the siblings were no strangers to manual labor. When the cut sod rolled off the conveyor belt, they were the ones who got to get down on their hands and knees to lift it and stack it.
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“Those weren’t what I’d call the fun days,” says Matt, “but our parents were honorable people who taught us to work hard. They instilled that work ethic and an entrepreneurial spirit in us from a very young age. I think that has a lot to do with what’s happened.”
What’s happened is the invention and production of sod harvesters and lawnmowers that have taken the robotic age by storm.
The company’s automated harvesters — capable of turning what used to be a four-man operation into one driver sitting in a heated or air-conditioned cab listening to Spotify — can be found all over the U.S. and around the world, including as far away as China and South Africa.
Tanner Dixon, mechanical engineer, works on the cutting unit of a fully autonomous lawn mower at FireFly Automatix in Salt Lake City on Wednesday, March 13, 2024. | Laura Seitz, Deseret News
And its eagerly anticipated, just-released fully electric robotic lawnmowers — requiring no driver — have already been ordered by sod farms and golf courses.
It all goes back to the day about 16 years ago when Steve Aposhian, Matt’s older brother, decided he could make a better robotic arm than the one that kept breaking on the early self-stacking harvester Lawrence had bought for his sod farm.
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Steve is the family engineer. When Steve was a teenager, Matt remembers him rigging up a motor from an electric race car to the blinds in his bedroom so he didn’t have to get out of bed to open and close the blinds.
Steve recruited a friend and fellow engineer, Will Decker, to redesign the robotic arm that kept breaking. When their version proved unbreakable, they decided to see if other sod farms might like to purchase something that was better than the original equipment.
When the response was “yes,” Steve and Will, along with another engineer friend, Eric Aston, and Matt Aposhian and his younger brother Dan formed a company they called FireFly. They set up their headquarters on Lawrence’s farm.
Then they set their sights even higher.
Lawrence Aposhian remembers the initial exchange he had with his son Steve.
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“He said, ‘I want to build an entire harvester from the ground up.’ I said, ‘Well, go ahead.’ So he got his engineer buddies, they sat in my office, got on my computer, and started designing this sod harvester. At night they went into my shop, got the steel and started fabricating.”
Steve, Will and Eric recruited Sam Drake, the professor who taught them engineering at the University of Utah, to help.
In less than a year — quick work even by Elon Musk standards — they had created what Lawrence calls “this remarkable thing.”
Horizon Turf Farms, a huge sod operation in Texas, bought the first FireFly harvester; then bought 17 more.
FireFly moved out of Lawrence’s farm into a spacious warehouse and in the 12 years since, as the company has grown to 190 employees (including 30 engineers), more than 600 fully completed FireFly ProSlab harvesters have rolled out the door. Currently, the company is selling about 110 harvesters a year.
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The success of the harvesters led to the six years of thinking, tinkering and fabricating that produced the just-released AMP — Autonomous Mowing Platform.
That’s a fancy way of saying a lawnmower that mows by itself.
“There’s nothing like it in the world,” says Matt. “With it being fully electric and fully autonomous, it does some things nobody else can do right now.”
Not only is a driverless 100-inch wide mower attractive to sod farms — where grass is cut as often as three times a week — but also to other places with large expanses of grass such as golf courses — a market Matt sees as the AMP’s future. There are 38,000 golf courses in the world, he points out. With a lawnmower that needs no driver, no gas and makes no noise, golf courses can mow their lawns early and late, not pollute the air and not wake anyone up. (You can see a video of the AMP in action at fireflyautomatix.com/amp-mowers/.)
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As Matt concludes our warehouse tour, making sure photographer Laura Seitz hasn’t taken any photos that might give away intellectual property (FireFly is home to more than six dozen current and pending patents), he surveys an assembly line Henry Ford would be proud of and an engineering laboratory right out of Thomas Edison’s playbook.
Hearkening back to his boyhood, he sums up in a sentence what the Aposhians and their engineer friends have wrought.
“We took what were the worst jobs on the sod farm,” he says, “now they’re the best.”
The autonomy controller and battery box of a fully autonomous lawn mower are pictured at FireFly Automatix in Salt Lake City on Wednesday, March 13, 2024. | Laura Seitz, Deseret News
Miami Heat (18-17, sixth in the Eastern Conference) vs. Utah Jazz (9-26, 14th in the Western Conference)
Salt Lake City; Thursday, 9 p.m. EST
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BOTTOM LINE: Utah is looking to end its eight-game home slide with a win against Miami.
The Jazz have gone 2-13 in home games. Utah allows 118.5 points to opponents and has been outscored by 6.9 points per game.
The Heat are 8-10 on the road. Miami is 10-6 in games decided by at least 10 points.
The Jazz’s 14.1 made 3-pointers per game this season are just 0.5 more made shots on average than the 13.6 per game the Heat give up. The Jazz average 111.3 points per game, 7.2 fewer points than the 118.5 the Jazz allow.
TOP PERFORMERS: Collin Sexton is averaging 17.9 points and 3.9 assists for the Jazz.
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Terry Rozier is shooting 40.0% and averaging 12.1 points for the Heat.
LAST 10 GAMES: Jazz: 4-6, averaging 116.1 points, 48.8 rebounds, 25.6 assists, 7.2 steals and 5.0 blocks per game while shooting 46.5% from the field. Their opponents have averaged 114.0 points per game.
Heat: 5-5, averaging 109.3 points, 42.1 rebounds, 25.8 assists, 8.3 steals and 4.1 blocks per game while shooting 46.8% from the field. Their opponents have averaged 111.7 points.
INJURIES: Jazz: Keyonte George: day to day (heel), John Collins: day to day (personal), Jordan Clarkson: day to day (plantar ), Taylor Hendricks: out for season (fibula), Brice Sensabaugh: day to day (illness).
Heat: Dru Smith: out for season (achilles), Josh Richardson: day to day (heel).
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The Associated Press created this story using technology provided by Data Skrive and data from Sportradar.
Florida State came up short in its pursuit of a top running back transfer.
On Tuesday, Utah State running back transfer Rahsul Faison announced he was committing to South Carolina. Faison chose the Gamecocks over FSU, Alabama, North Carolina, UCLA, and UCF.
The Seminoles hosted Faison for a visit last weekend but he continued to take trips elsewhere. Florida State could very well kick the tires on another transfer during the spring window.
Faison spent two seasons with the Aggies and had a career year in 2024 where he rushed 198 times for 1,109 yards and eight touchdowns while catching 22 passes for 99 yards. He had five games of 100+ rushing yards, including a season-high 20 carries for 191 yards and a touchdown in a 55-10 victory against Hawaii on November 16. He was named second-team All-Mountain West for his performance last fall.
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During his first season at Utah State, Faison rushed 118 times for 736 yards and five touchdowns. In total, he appeared in 25 games, making 13 starts, and totaled 316 carries for 1,845 yards and 13 touchdowns. Faison also caught 33 passes for 151 yards.
The Pennsylvania native signed with Marshall as a two-star prospect in 2019. He ultimately spent that season at the junior college level at Lackawanna College and was with the Thundering Herd in 2020. Faison didn’t appear in a game with either program and elected to go back to the JUCO level with Snow College. He rushed 88 times for 355 yards and six touchdowns prior to transferring to Utah State.
The 5-foot-11, 200-pound running back has at least one season of eligibility remaining due to the new junior college ruling.
READ MORE: Elite FSU Quarterback Commitment Gets First Chance To Meet New OC Gus Malzahn
Florida State has six scholarship running backs eligible to return in 2025; redshirt senior Roydell Williams, redshirt senior Caziah Holmes, redshirt junior Jaylin Lucas, redshirt sophomore Samuel Singleton Jr., sophomore Kam Davis, and redshirt freshman Micahi Danzy.
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The Seminoles signed four-star Ousmane Kromah during the Early Signing Period.
READ MORE: Standout Utah State Running Back Transfer Lists Florida State In Top-Six
Stick with NoleGameday for more FREE coverage of Florida State Football throughout the offseason
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• Florida State Adds FCS Quarterbacks Coach To Off-Field Staff
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• Florida State Lands Explosive Tennessee Wide Receiver Transfer Squirrel White
•Florida State Secures Veteran Memphis Linebacker Transfer Elijah Herring
•Former FSU Defensive End, Seminole Legacy Transferring To Third School In Three Years
PROVO, Utah — A teacher within the Alpine School District is facing charges of sexual exploitation of a minor after allegedly uploading child porn to the internet. Travis Adamson, 49, is currently being held without bail.
According to court documents obtained by FOX 13 News, investigators were first notified of the potential crime at the end of April 2023. Adobe Inc. reported to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children via CyberTip that a user had uploaded files containing depictions of minors engaging in sexually explicit conduct on their account.
The CyberTip also included account information regarding the suspect user, including an IP address and email address that belonged to a teacher within the Alpine School District. Detectives used geo-location to trace the suspect’s IP address and found it was located within or near the city limits of Provo.
The school district confirmed to investigators that Adamson was still an employee within the district.
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On Monday, detectives interviewed Adamson at the school where he confirmed that he was the sole user of the Adobe account and admitted to viewing child sexual abuse material.
Adamson also told detectives that he had downloaded several thousand images and videos onto his hard drive which is located at his home. He denied ever photographing or doing anything sexual or inappropriate with his students or other kids.
Detectives are now working to get access to Adamson’s hard drive and more charges could be coming.
