Class Act Gets Top Marks!
Hartpury University and College campus
Rigby Taylor’s fully autonomous, robotic TinyLineMarker (TLM) Pro has proved to be a “big time saver” for the grounds team at Hartpury University and Hartpury College, according to Grounds and Sports Maintenance Manager Matthew Newman, who oversees the grounds maintenance of the facility’s multi-million-pound outdoor sports facilities - used by students, as well as Premiership RFU side Gloucester Rugby, Gloucester-Hartpury Women’s RFC, Hartpury University RFC and the university football club.
Matthew manages three grounds care teams that work across the 360-hectacre, Gloucester-based, Hartpury University and Hartpury College campus, which is one of the UK’s leading specialist sports, agriculture, equine and veterinary educational providers at Further and Higher Education level. His 11 members of staff include a gardening team that looks after the amenity areas around the historical gardens and student accommodation, the construction team works on hard landscaping projects, and the sports-based team of three manages the college’s short game area and golf green as well as eight natural turf and two 3G artificial sports pitches.
He was introduced to the TLM Pro when discussing pitch line-marking time management issues with Rigby Taylor Technical Sales Manager, Simon Hughes. “There’s probably not a single day when a line marker is not being used by my team at the college,” Matthew explains. “We normally pitch prep on a Monday and Tuesday for university and college mid-week fixtures on a Wednesday, Gloucester Rugby trains on the same day, Thursday is a repair day and on Friday we prep for the weekend fixtures. I mentioned the fact that it normally took two members of staff one and a half hours to each mark a pitch, when Simon suggested I try the TLM Pro, which he said could help me free up the team members’ time to do other tasks.”
Simon’s subsequent TLM Pro onsite demonstration included a thorough run through of the robot’s mechanical functions and GPS technology. He highlighted the fact that the two interchangeable batteries provide up to 10 hours spraying time, without re-charging, and gave a step-by-step guide on how to create pitch templates - via an App, supplied with the Samsung Galaxy tablet.
He then set the robot to work on one of Hartpury’s full-sized sports pitches, which was completed in just 20 minutes - within an accuracy of 5-10mm.
Robotic marking of full size football takes just 20 minutes
Matthew was so impressed, he decided to invest in the machine there and then and says it immediately proved to be a massive time saver for the team. “Our sports pitches are adjacent to each other so we can now cut and roll one pitch, put the TLM Pro on to mark and then cut and roll the adjacent pitch while it’s doing its job,” he says.
TLM Pro is a massive time saver for the team
Simon has subsequently helped Matthew to train up his team members on how to use the tablet and access the pitch templates, which they’ve found easy to use. “We can now plot our own pitches,” Matthew explains. “In fact, over the close season I had to convert a rugby pitch to a football pitch, which previously would have meant taking out the posts to re-measure. Now, all I need to do is store the original pitch template on the tablet and replace with a football pitch template in its place. That means what would have taken me a day, now takes just 10 minutes.”
Supplied tablet stores multiple templates for different sports markings
Regarding line-marking paint, Matthew says he has always uses Rigby Taylor’s Impact paint with the TLM Pro. “I find we now use much less paint than we did with a standard line-marking system,” he explains. “The Impact paint comes in a container so there’s no need to mix powder with water. You just give it a shake, put it in the machine and off it goes. The paint holds together well and the line stay highly visual much longer than other paints that can dull down after a couple of days of rain. Impact paint hasn’t done that - even in the winter months.”
Regarding the college’s future plans for sport, Matthews says Gloucester Rugby will be moving into its own training centre in July this year, which frees up two rugby pitches, allowing eight for use by college students.
Matthew plans to convert the pitch set to four natural turf rugby pitches and four for football.
In addition to an existing 3G pitch for rugby, tested to World Rugby regulations, another one for football use is fully certified by FIFA.
“The college first teams play on a high-quality pitch for each sport, so we plan to raise the pitch standards for second and third teams too – and we’ll be looking to Rigby Taylor to continue to provide grass seed and fertiliser materials, plus on going assistance and advice to help us achieve this objective,” Matthew concludes.
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