FGCU adds artistic robot to its grounds crew

Meet Michaela Wazoski, a robot named for its one eyeball and eyelash.

“Similar to the green monster in Monsters, Inc. Mike,” FGCU Associate Athletics Director Jeremy Blake-Johnson. “It’s his sister Michaela.”

Michaela joined the grounds crew at the beginning of the school year with the FGCU’s athletics department.

The robot uses GPS to draw the lines on the Eagles’ baseball, softball and soccer fields.

“As far as manpower utilization goes, it takes two, two and a half hours to line a soccer field. Whereas when you have one of these, it takes about 30 minutes. So, trying to find a way to be more efficient about how we do things and more accurate as well.”

The university leases Michaela from a company called Turf Tank for about $15,000 a year.

Blake-Johnson says it’s worth every penny because of the time it saves the grounds crew.

“Nick and Evan both have way more time to work on the clay, the dirt and other aspects of taking care of the grass and the field itself so it allows us to spread our resources more.”

As personified as its name and eye makes it, Michaela is a robot, so how does it work?

“There is a base station that you set up on each of the fields and it has a GPS signal that goes up into the sonar and it allows for us to know exactly where that robot is located at a given time. From there, there’s a tablet that’s used and you just plug in the dimensions of which field you’re looking to use or what logo you want to put down and from there it takes care of the rest.”

Michaela is learning each time it takes the field, but as the school’s grounds crew gets more familiar with the machine, it gets more familiar with how to work for the Eagles.