Kin Coulee Park's robotic lawn mower charging on Friday morning (Photo courtesy of Scott Roblin)

By Scott Roblin

Robots & Rec

Robotic lawn mower opening doors to new technology for City

Jul 3, 2020 | 11:51 AM

MEDICINE HAT, AB – Passing by Kin Coulee Park along the Trans-Canada Highway, you may have noticed a small robot roaming around the park’s ball diamonds in recent weeks.

It’s part of a new pilot project for the City of Medicine Hat to invest in new technologies for parks and recreation and other City departments.

This spring, the parks and recreation team purchased an automated lawn mower which has been operational in Kin Coulee Park for the last few weeks.

According to Superintendent of Parks Dave Genio, other cities across western Canada have used similar technology before and wanted to see its capabilities in Medicine Hat.

“The best way to explain it is it’s like a Roomba but for grass or turf,” said Genio. “It’s a little bit different than a Roomba in your home, which uses the perimeter of your home or living room to mark out its area. For instillation purposes here, we had to install a boundary wire as well as wire for guidance for the mower to return to its charging station.”

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Between the initial purchase and upkeep of its blades and technology, it’s estimated the robotic mower cost the City between $5,000 and $7,000.

Around 1.2 acres of grass is mowed per week in Kin Coulee Park using the robot, which returns to its charging station every few hours before automatically waking up to cut grass again.

Genio and his team have given their seal of approval regarding the grass cutter, which has allowed them to assign staff to other parks around the city that require mowing.

Right now, the robot is remaining at Kin Coulee Park but there has been discussion of applying the same technology at other large green spaces in Medicine Hat.

“Yes, there is the potential – and I say potential – that this could be seen in other park areas where we think it would do a great job in easing some of the mowing requirements within the city,” said Genio.

This embracing of new technology comes as the City’s parks department introduced 150 goats into Police Point Park last week to address long-term weed maintenance.

While animal grazing and robot technology are two very separate ways of going about parks maintenance, the diversity in these pilot projects is something the City has been touting.

“Now we’ve kind of gone from an older, more animal related issue there to a more technological advancement here,” said Genio. “So, we’re trying to look at all aspects that are available to us in terms of resources like goats, like robotic mowers, to improve our parks systems.”

Genio added this investment has opened more doors for the parks and recreation department to explore new ways to make park maintenance more efficient.

“From year to year has technology advanced?” he said. “Are there bigger mowers? Is there other opportunities where the technology has grown to not just be a mowing device, but a snow clearing device? So, there are equipment out like that we have been looking into in terms of demoing as well.”

A second robotic lawn mower is expected to be added to the City’s arsenal in the coming weeks, with the hopes of it being operational by mid-August.