It draws attention everywhere it goes - "Albie", Canberra's first robot linemarker.
Owner Ken Yalg, who named the machine after his late father, is thought to be the only person in Canberra using the technology, which can mark out sports fields in about a quarter of the time.
The robot uses GPS satellite technology to guide its direction and follow a set template, which Ken can select from his tablet depending on the field, whether it's soccer or AFL, a netball court of athletics track. Albie can also write words and mark out parking spots on a surface - all fully automated while Ken sits back and reads a book. Well, almost.
"It's accuracy is 10ml, 20ml. You can't tell the difference. From scratch, it normally takes two people and four hours to do a field. With this, it takes about an hour," he said.
Albie is Danish technology ("That's why it's so good at soccer fields") and Ken has been putting it to work since January, changing careers after 27 years as a fire alarm technician. His late father's bequest allowed him to strike out on his own, and he is loving his own - and well as Albie's - autonomy.
"It's a lot less stress than going out and working for someone else," he said.
A former long-time president of the Brindabella Blues Football Club, Ken understood the hours that, usually, club volunteers put in each week marking out sport fields ahead of a weekend, which in winter usually meant doing the fields on a freezing Friday night before play on a Saturday morning. Now, Albie can do it in a fraction of the time.
The paint lasts about two weeks, less time in the rain, which means Ken has a viable business, going back to re-do the fields. He can also use different coloured paints and work on grass or concrete.
Albie, meanwhile, has already become a curiosity across Canberra as he trundles across the fields, literally stopping people in their tracks.
"I do some fields over at Waramanga, and because there's the two schools on either side, all the primary school kids come out and they just chase it around. It really is funny to watch," Ken said.
"Dogs are fantastic. Everywhere you go, there's dogs. The dogs all bark at it and the owners are like, 'Oh don't do that' and I'll say, 'Just give him a whiff' and the dog has a sniff and realises 'It's not a dog' and runs off and he's right after that.
"It is amazing. It's an eye-opener. It's been a really social thing, people will always come up and have a chat and ask, 'What's that?'."
