BIDDEFORD, Maine — If you play sports, or played them growing up, you may have a story of playing on a field with uneven or crooked sidelines.
Future Maine athletes may never run into that problem as more towns and schools are using automated machines to paint field lines. Biddeford Public Works hosted a representative from the company Turf Tank this summer as the department wanted to learn how to get straighter field lines.
“And when we saw it done and how professional it made our fields look, because we’re very proud of our fields, we decided to bring that forward to the city manager,” BPW Director Jeff Demers said.
The machine has been in action for a few weeks now. Demers said it is programmed with the GPS coordinates of most of the fields in town. All one of his employees needs to do is open up an iPad, link the machine to the right location, and press start.
However, ground crews still need to fill the machine with paint cans and make sure it stays on track, and check that the GPS system is still working.
Besides that, Demers said this automated process allows his workers to focus on other tasks around the field, like weed-whacking, mowing the grass, cleaning facilitates, and raking. Per year, Demers estimated that the Turf Tank will save the department 200 hours a year from hand painting fields.
Thornton Academy in Saco also uses one of these machines.
“We’re able to do all the fields in about six hours, as opposed to, a football field would take two people all day long to do that," Scott Hamilton, a member of the school's grounds crew said Friday. “It’s precise, it’s quick, and it has really reduced the amount of man hours that it takes to line the fields themselves.”
Hamilton added not every playing surface is perfectly level and it's easier to paint a crooked line if you're going by hand.
The school can even program the machine to paint lines on indoor sports courts, like for volleyball matches.
Another advantage to using this technology is schools can paint specific sports lines on their fields based on the season.
“You can reduce the number of lines on those fields, it’s a lot easier for the kids playing," Maine Principals' Association Assistant Executive Director Michael Bisson said.
Bisson said on traditional turf fields, you could have lines for football, field hockey, soccer, boy's lacrosse, and girl's lacrosse all on the same surface.
"So it’s really confusing for the kids, confusing for the officials, and even the fans don’t know if [the ball is] in or out," Bisson added.
In sports, it's common for teams and organizations to search for a competitive edge over their opponent. Field maintenance is no different, and Bisson expects more schools and communities to install turf fields and use this Turf Tank technology in the future.