Steve spends most of his working week doing lines — not the dodgy ones.
The GPS-controlled robotic line marker is used by Delta to mark up about 120 sports fields across the greater Dunedin area each season.
And now that the winter sports season is about to kick off, Steve is hard at work with his boss, Delta contracts superviser Simon Smaill, getting the city’s fields in line.
Mr Smaill said he used a tablet to mark out the GPS co-ordinates of each field, then uploaded them to Steve before filling him up with a special mixture of paint.
"Then I just push the "go" button, and off he goes. That’s it, basically.
"Mapping the fields out initially takes a wee bit of extra time, but once we have it mapped out, it’s permanently in the system.
"For example, with a rugby field, you use the four goal posts as markers and that gives you the template for the rugby field.
"And then you can change your dead ball lines, your sidelines and other measurements to fit inside whatever ground you’re doing.
"Ground sizes vary quite substantially around Dunedin."
He said Steve was able to mark out rugby, football, softball, cricket, touch and Kī-o-Rahi fields, as well as athletics tracks — any sport you can think of.
"That would take about an hour and a-half to two hours. It was very time-consuming.
"At this time of year, that would be just crazy because all the summer and winter sports are overlapping.
"Now, one person and the robot can mark it out in about 35 minutes."
He said the fields were mowed once a week, so man-powered trollies were used to touch up the lines again each week.
He said Steve cost about $60,000, but Delta had saved a "phenomenal" amount of time, money and people power because it was so efficient.
"It’s paid itself off comfortably. While it’s painting the lines, I can go off and do other jobs.
"Without it, we’d be really struggling to get all the fields done in time.
"Sometimes, certain grounds are quite challenging to mark. They are hard to keep straight because they have different undulations or bumps.
"But the GPS just does it all for you and makes it much easier."
His no fuss, no bother, hard work ethic made Steve the perfect colleague, he said.
